


Within You (Without You)

by 1lostone



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock BBC, Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Accidental Voyeurism, Angst, But he means well., Claustrophobia, Codependency, Depression, First Time, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, Insecure Sherlock, Jealousy, M/M, Mycroft is kind of an ass., NON-LINEAR story, PTSD, Post Reichenbach, Sherlock Is A Bit Not Good, Suicidal Thoughts, Voyeurism, descriptions of panic attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2014-10-07
Packaged: 2017-11-29 23:55:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 63,146
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/692984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1lostone/pseuds/1lostone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It wasn’t fair to say that Sherlock never miscalculated. As often as he might wish otherwise, Sherlock was, after all, only human.  As John would say, ‘on the “rare” occasions when Sherlock fucked something up, he <i>really </i> fucked something up.'</p>
<p>This was most definitely one of those times.</p>
<p>
  <b> EDIT: 28 February, 2016.  THANK YOU!! (!!!) To <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/moth2fic/pseuds/moth2fic"> Moth2Fic </a> for Britpicking. I adore you and thank you so very much!!!!</b>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Please see the end for Notes/Warnings, etc. :)

 

**Chapter 1**

  
**-Before-**  
  
[Text received: 12 June, 2012, 11:34 am]  
    **-This course of action is unwise. I don’t believe you’ve considered all the ramifications.**  
  
[[Text received: 12 June, 2012, 11:40 am]  
    **-Sherlock.**  
  
[Text received: 12 June, 2012, 11:45 am]  
    **-Too late. Be ready, Mycroft.- SH**  
  
[Text received: 12 June, 2012, 11:45 am]  
    **-Naturally.**  
  
 *******  
I clutched my  tea, more than aware that my long fingers were shaking just slightly enough that the sweet, dark liquid moved in its china prison, shuddering against the edges of the cup.  At any other given moment, the fact that my attention was focused upon on one detail would not have surprised any of the few acquaintances that knew me. Even the small fleck of blood caught near the second-to-last finger on my left hand wasn’t particularly new. Yet my mind was a whirling dervish of blankness; a state completely foreign to me.  
  
I knew that Mycroft  would have already noticed, calculated, and dismissed my reaction. Soon would come the gloating, or worse. Mild disappointment. Predictable.  
  
Boring.  
  
It took the space of several heartbeats before I could move to set down the cup, reaching towards the table where my mobile sat, looking, as John would say, ‘rather the worse for wear,’ ready to text him with my observation. I knew that John would find it amusing. The smirk of John’s lips whenever I mentioned my older, endlessly interfering brother never failed to produce an equally amused expression on my own lips. My fingertips trembled on the Blackberry case before I froze, breath catching painfully in my throat. The screen was still cracked from where I had tossed it near Moriarty’s body.  
  
“Interesting.”  
  
Mycroft’s snide remark caused my already tense muscles to bunch further. The teacup clicked as I set it down, careful to keep my movements lazily serene, attempting to hide the agonizing clench of...  
  
Well. Had I use for any descriptor that leaned towards the figurative, I would say it was my heart that clenched when the fact that I could no longer text John became brutally apparent to me.  That was more John’s area.  
  
As of two hours and forty-three minutes ago, Molly had confirmed that I was now dead.  
  
It would have been customary of me to just glare my frustration at Mycroft, but as I was fully aware that I was not, in fact, currently successful at hiding any of my reactions the effort seemed too much work.  
  
“I believe that you are fully aware of my... reservations of this scheme of yours, Sherlock.”  
  
I jumped up, suddenly suffused with energy.  “It is much too late for you to tell me ‘I told you so.’ Really, I would think that you’d got that out of your system by now.” My mind was still frozen, numb with the enormity of my actions. I could still hear the break in John’s voice---  
  
 _“No. No, he’s my friend. He’s my friend,_ please _.”_  
  
My hands curled into fists.  
  
“If your contact driving the lorry had been even the slightest bit late...”  
  
I huffed out an annoyed breath. “Yes. Yes, I am aware. The rumours of my death would have not been nearly as exaggerated. Really, I would prefer that we end with this ridiculous conversation.” The abrasiveness of needing to converse with Mycroft instead of our usual method of either text or deducing entire conversations with a few glances weighed on me. Even more infuriating was the fact that Mycroft was several steps ahead of me, having already decided that in this... altered... state my brain would be no match for his. He was compensating for my weakness.  
  
I turned, gaze jumping from the rush of pulse in Mycroft’s throat, to the way his umbrella was nowhere in evidence. His umbrella. Why wasn’t it here? The scuff mark on his otherwise immaculate shoe, the two pulled threads on the fine material of his trousers fairly screamed the answer, now that my hard drive was slowly coming back online again.  
  
Of course. He’d been texting. Intent on an eye-witness account of what I had done. The lorry driver’s answer had caused Mycroft to stumble on the kerb, a move so completely out of character that his assistant hadn’t been able to grab him in time to stall the awkward movement.  His shoe had scraped against the pavement. His trousers had caught on the door’s mechanism when he threw out his hand to catch himself. Yes. slight discoloration on the palm where he’d caught his substantial weight against the lip of the door. Why hadn’t she been able to stall his near-fall?  She too had been startled by the uncharacteristic way her boss had been acting.  Her hand had slipped from its customary touch on Mycroft’s elbow, leaving a small grease stain from her earlier danish on the back of his suit jacket.  They had both been so discombobulated from Mycroft’s small lapse towards humanity that he had forgotten his umbrella in the back of the black car.  
  
Simple.  
  
Mycroft was rarely alone. Even now, his eyes raked unsubtly over my form, looking for injury. The minions that were almost always hovering just out of earshot had been dismissed from the small study, leaving a shade of intimacy to our conversation that just wasn’t on. The signs of his distress fairly screamed at me, causing my furious pacing to stop, mid-step.  I wanted to smirk. My plan had gone off perfectly. Sleight of hand, smoke and mirrors. The dull masses did only see what they wanted to see.  Even Jo-  
  
 _John._ Oh, Bollocks.  
  
  
I swallowed, blinking twice in rapid succession. My lips pulled down in a frown and I threw myself back down in the frankly embarrassingly ostentatious chair Mycroft preferred for company, purposefully looking back down at my hands. The small fleck of blood caught my attention again and I reached into my borrowed dressing gown for the handkerchief Mycroft insisted upon, folded precisely over the edge of the pocket.  I scrubbed at the small spot of blood, knowing that Mycroft was no doubt drawing his own conclusions from my erratic behaviour and utterly, wretchedly unable to bring myself to care one whit.  
  
I forced myself to calm. Sipped the tea. Ignored my cracked and broken phone.  
  
The catch in John’s throat as he saw my blood-covered face played on an endless loop in my mind. While I made no attempt to claim that I had more than a passing knowledge with sentiment, my brain’s complete refusal to delete the broken note of John’s voice was somewhat worrying. I had rather a lot to accomplish after all. Still, I had never claimed that John was anything but endlessly distracting. Even now, he--  
  
“Sherlock--”  
  
My hands tightened on the handkerchief. “I will need access to a safe house.  Laptop. Funds. Level three clearance.” Obvious. I jumped up again, twisting the small piece of silk through my fingers as I stared, unseeing, at my mobile as I paced. “Moriarty alluded to three snipers.  You claimed that one had already been apprehended at the Yard?” My voice rose in a question.  
  
Mycroft jolted out of his reverie. That is to say, his left eyebrow twitched. Ponce. I could not decide if he was mocking me or simply being more blatant in his manipulations by his sudden onset of brotherly concern for my plan. After texting Moriarty, there had not been much time to put all of the pieces of my plan in place. I was willing to admit, privately, that without Mycroft’s assistance my suicide would have been much more broken and bleeding and much less smoke and mirrors. Still, he was bloody annoying. I flopped back down into the chair, wincing at the number of contusions that fairly sang their discontent at my movement.  
  
“Yes. I have provided everything that you need, including video feeds of the sniper’s detainment.” Mycroft waved away my demands as though they were beneath him, a movement that utterly drove me mad.  
  
I could picture John, my mind clearly defining each and every aspect of his compact frame. But I couldn't bring myself to say the words. This was vital. Necessary. John must stay safe. I would do anything, _had_ done _everything_ to assure that John was not touched by the long reach of Moriarty’s arm.    
  
When I was a small child, I had been convinced of my brother’s invulnerability. He was older than me. Cleverer than me ( _That_ particular belief was pure nonsense of course, but every child must be forgiven their little fantasies).  I had often been convinced of his omnipotence- at least until I had worked out how to deduce things at my own pace.  I was forcibly reminded of this when Mycroft leaned forward slightly, the pale, cold blue of his irises forcing acknowledgement of my own gaze. “He will be under constant surveillance, Sherlock. I will not allow him to come to harm.” He sat back slightly, the chair cushion making a muffled protest at the bulk of his body. “You must trust me.”  
  
I rolled my eyes.  
  
“Trust you to keep John safe? Don’t be any more ridiculous than you can help, Mycroft.  I trust my _self_ to see that Moriarty's flunkies are quickly subdued. I trust _you_ to provide me with everything that I will need to accomplish this task. John’s safety will not be compromised.”  
  
I stood, walking quickly towards the door of the small flat. Mycroft had several safe houses, all hidden under different levels of security peppered all over London.  “I’m sure you can see yourself out.”  John would likely bleat that kicking one’s own brother out of his own flat was more than a bit not good. But I had had enough. There was much to do and I was positively itching to begin. Nearly everything that I needed was right here in Mycroft’s borrowed flat.  
  
Sadly, however, it was blindingly undeniable that John was not one of those things. I flung myself back down on the ridiculously squashy chair, elbows resting on each arm so that I could steeple my fingers in my customary thinking position. John called it my ‘daft-looking brain worship pose,’ but I had long deduced the most efficient position to assure that the most optimal amount of blood flow to my brain, ensuring that it received the most oxygen. I put the thoughts of John out of my mind. Not to be deleted- I’d long discovered that attempting to delete anything pertaining to John Watson was an exercise in futility- but so that I would not be swimming in this foolish sentiment, the effects of which were still evident in my trembling hands and the higher-than normal heart rate.  From far away I could hear the small click of the door as Mycroft walked out of the small flat and once alone took a deep, shuddery breath. I reached for my tea again and forced myself to take a calming sip.  I had not... fully anticipated my reaction to faking my own death. Stupid, really. Unforgivably stupid.  
  
John would be fine. He would go through the expected rituals of grief. He would mourn my death, possibly move from our flat... all expected. There was a high probability that his limp would reassert itself. There was an equally high probability that his grief would manifest in a need for closer companionship. Not his sister, at least not after her initial worry. Sawyer? No. The Morstan woman he had met at the coffee shop would most likely fill that desire. I blinked, remembering the way all her focus had been on John, even after he had spilled a good bit of her cappuccino over her table so that it was dripping across her expensive shoes. It had been utterly obvious from the flush on his skin that John shared her blatant attraction.  
  
Without conscious action I found myself throwing the expensive china against the wall, tea splattering on the tasteful wallpaper like blood-spatter.  I stared at the mess, shocked at the violence of my actions.  
  
More than a bit not good, that.  
  
  
  
 **-Now-**  
  
  
When John finally blinked awake, it was to a light shining directly into his eyes. He winced away, turning his head just enough that it wasn’t directly in his face. He could still see little dips and whorls of lights popping behind his hastily closed eyelids.  
  
Turning his head was a mistake.  
  
John groaned, swallowing the bile that jumped to his throat at the movement of his head. He started to bring up his hand to the stabbing pain behind his forehead, but found to his dismay that his hands were cuffed behind him. There was a muffled clunk of sound as the chain of the cuff knocked against the hard surface under him.  
  
He groaned again, trying to blink the sweat out of his eyes. He could hear his own heavy breath echoing in the small space and forced himself to breathe a little more slowly. It wouldn’t do to panic. First. Remember. Breathe. _Breathe._  John heard his deep, shuddery breath echoing in the unfathomable space behind his eyelids. He wasn’t quite sure he was brave enough to open his eyes and affirm exactly how fucked he was. John used the trick Ella had insisted he use after Sher-- _No. Stop._  
  
Breathe in. Hold it. Count. One. Two. Three.  
  
Exhale. Feel it outside of your lungs. One. Two. Three.  
  
John did it again. And again, until the bright burst of panic started to recede. The nausea wasn’t exactly pleasant, but he could ignore the way it swam low in his gut. His head was the problem. The blurry vision and pounding headache told him a concussion was fairly bloody likely. John peeped one eye open, trying not to wince at how quickly his pupils reacted. It threw the rest of the small space in shadow.  
  
Cautiously, John tried to sit up, mindful of his head. He had to press against the bottom surface with his shoulder in order to find the leverage to move. Even going as slowly as he was his stomach was not particularly thrilled with the movement and revolted again.    
  
This time, John grimaced, forcing himself not to sick up. God, he fucking hated to vomit. He wasn’t too fussed when it belonged to other people (John had pretty much gotten over that during his first residency), but when it was his own he-- he-- he _really_ needed to think about something else.  
  
“So. Small space. Not a room. Bit of give from shoulder to shoulder, so a bit more than a meter and a half?” John slumped to one side of the space, wincing back with a sharp gasp when he felt the heat that bubbled up against the hard surface of the wall. It didn’t burn him, but the startled jerk of his sore body made him lose the battle with his stomach. John heaved twice, bending as best he could so that he wouldn’t sick up on himself. He failed fairly spectacularly. John’s cracked head sent bright starbursts of agony through his clenched eyes as he retched helplessly, his fists curling into his thighs as his body shook through bringing up bile. John had been so intent on trying not to panic that he had not realized that he cracked a rib until he tried to expel his lungs through his oesophagus with dry heaving.  
  
“Well, shit.” John spat, made a face and wiped his chin as best he could with his shoulder, turning away from the light so that he could better see. He’d managed to get sick in one of the corners, but his jeans weren’t exactly clean anymore. With his hands still cuffed behind him, it was difficult for John to gauge his own sense of balance, but he cautiously inched back until his fingers brushed against the back wall. His foot sent something clattering against the floor’s surface, and squinting, John tried to see.  
  
Between the pounding of his head and the positioning of the light, it was extremely hard to focus. John sat with his back against the wall, rising up on his knees a little to test the distance. It was perhaps four feet from floor to ceiling, and John frowned down at his sick-spattered shoe, trying to force himself to think.  
  
John couldn’t remember how he’d gotten here. Concussion? Amnesia? His vision wasn’t blurry- not with the fucking light of Righteousness shining down on him. He didn’t really feel dizzy, but he was more than aware that signs didn’t necessarily present right away. The vomiting and the headache weren’t looking so good though.  His headache was truly spectacular. John knew he was gritting his teeth together. That certainly wasn’t doing any wonders for the aching in his head, but he couldn’t seem to stop.  
  
With his hands behind his back, John couldn’t shade his eyes from the bright glare of the light. Huffing out an annoyed breath, he turned to flop against the other wall, only to jerk back with a pained cry. “ _Fuck!_ ” He bit his bottom lip, jerking back against the back surface with a dejected slump, his skin still stinging.  “A current? How the fuck is that even possible?” He wanted to rub his shoulder, and it really fucking pissed him off that he couldn’t.  It didn’t hurt exactly; rather it felt more like his skin was tingling, goosebumps almost crawling against each other on the corner of his acromion forward to the skin of his collar bone.  
  
“You’ll find, dear doctor, that just about anything is possible if you want it badly enough.”  
  
John managed to hide most of his flinch, but it was a near thing. The voice was loud enough to echo, warped by some kind of voice distorter. It was impossible to tell who was speaking. John waited, closing his eyes. The light was almost hurting now. He could still see the aurora from it, even with his eyes shut. “You must want me pretty badly.”  
  
The voice laughed. “You have no idea. I am pleased that you’re awake though. I’m afraid my associate was a little too ...enthusiastic... when he captured the two of you.”  
  
The two of-  
  
 _Sherlock!_  
  
John couldn’t help the way his eyes popped open. Memories swam at him all at once, an overwhelming tide that he was helpless to stop. He could see Sherlock’s expression as John’s words hit him, watching each flinch with on his former best friend’s pale face with something very close to satisfaction. John remembered the way he’d had to just leave the microscopic little flat, had thrown off Sherlock’s hand on his wrist so hard that Sherlock had stumbled back, tripping over his own two feet and landing square on his arse.  John had run downstairs then, fury giving him the speed he needed to stay ahead of his former friend and flatmate.  
  
They’d been on him almost from the second he’d stepped out from under the bakery’s awning. John had been so wrapped up in his own emotions that he hadn’t heard the heavy step behind him.  
  
“John! Be _hind_ \--!”  
  
There had been a cry and John had whirled, only to catch a glimpse of Sherlock sagging into the arms of someone, his ridiculously long frame almost folding in on itself. Sherlock must have been only seconds behind John. He hadn’t even heard Sherlock’s tread on the stairs. John’s heart had simply stopped in his chest at the sight of Sherlock collapsing without even a fight. Reflex had John taking a step forward, instinct sending him jerking away from the menace behind him as his assailant swung the - had to have been a pipe of some sort. A bat perhaps. A two-by-four for all that John knew. He’d only felt the bright starburst of pain at the back of his skull before he blacked out.  
  
The last thing he’d seen from eyes gone fuzzy was Sherlock’s bare feet as the two men threw him into the back of a lorry.  
  
“Ah, I can see you know, little Johnny. What’s the matter? Feeling a little guilty for the lover’s spat? I can assure you that you have much more interesting things to worry about. Open your eyes, please.”  
  
“Fuck off.”  
  
The voice tsked. “John.” Just his name. A warning that sent his balls crawling into his gut with the menace that shone through, even through the voice distorter.  
  
There was an electrical sort of whine and John froze for a second, nervously trying to place the sound. A generator? Older model, like some of the dinosaurs he’d had to count on to provide electricity to his operating tents in Afghanistan. The shock of it caused him to cautiously squint open one eye. The light had been turned down. It was still bright, but not nearly as intense. Blinking, John opened both eyes.  
  
What he saw sent him scrambling forward, all his fury forgotten at the sight of the monitor.  Now that the light was not so bright, John could see that the far wall of his box was actually made of a thick plastic (glass? no way to tell) material. He could see directly through it to the flat-screen monitor behind it. The light was also behind the glass, which explained why he hadn’t felt any heat from such a bright source of light.  John licked his lips, not even noticing the sour taste in his mouth as he stared at the monitor, his heart rate skyrocketing.  
  
The monitor showed that Sherlock was sprawled out on a floor. He was bleeding from a head wound. There was no way to see if he was alive or not. The camera panned back to show a stark room, concrete walls and a cheap lino floor that could have been anywhere.  The only way John knew it was real was from the marks on Sherlock. The marks he’d put there. That rip in the seam of Sherlock’s t-shirt was from John’s hands clutching it. The trousers were the same ones Sherlock had worn for almost a week, switching out only with the pyjamas.  
  
“Yes, as you can see you’re not the only one we have here. So I expect you to be on your absolute best behaviour, Doctor. Because trust me. I can make this stay extremely unpleasant. For the both of you.”  
  
John didn’t even realize that he had scrambled to his knees until his clammy forehead pressed against the cool glass. Sherlock. Oh fuck, _Sherlock._ The camera, as though attuned to John’s inner scream of anguish, zoomed in on Sherlock’s pale, still face. Sherlock’s lips twitched slightly, his nose wrinkling up in the way John had seen hundreds of times before. John heard a strangled sob and realized that it had come from his own throat at the realization that Sherlock wasn’t dead. He was alive.  
  
The camera cut off with an abrupt flash of a snow, like a television station that had gone off-air.  “No! Sherlock!”  
  
“Now, now Doctor. None of that. Best make yourself comfortable, really. You’re likely to be staying here for quite awhile.”  
  
John blinked, staring hard at the monitor as though he could make it come back on through his own willpower.  Sherlock was alive. Sherlock had been taken, kidnapped when John had been. But Sherlock wasn’t dead. Wasn’t-- His mind flashed on Sherlock’s broken, bloody, twisted from on the pavement at Bart’s and he couldn’t help the way his face crumpled for just a moment.  
  
He took a deep, shaky breath. Another. Breathe in. Hold it. Count. One. Two. Three.  
  
Exhale. Feel it outside of your lungs. One. Two. Three.  
  
Slowly John moved back to his former position. When the light cut out completely, he kept himself from reacting simply by reminding himself that he had an audience. He would not be this sick fuck’s entertainment.  Best to play along for the time being, see what he could see. John wouldn’t be doing anything foolish with the threat of Sherlock being held over his head. That particular Sword of Damocles was not going to fall, not if he had any say in the matter.  
  
The trouble was... John was not all that confident that he had any say in the matter at all.


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2**

 

**-Before-**

[Text sent: 23 June, 2012, 02:01 am]

    **-Obviously your attempts to ‘watch over’ John are as abysmal as your attempts to use the cut of your suit to hide your ever-expanding waistline. You promised that he would not come to harm. -SH**

[Text sent: 23 June, 2012, 02:01 am]

    **-Unavoidable.**

I tightened my fingers with a hiss, sounding much more like an angry cat than I would ever admit to anyone. It wasn’t the first time that I had bemoaned Mycroft’s utter and complete incompetence, but it was the first time in recent history that his ineptitude had made me this utterly furious.

I should have anticipated the bomb.

Events on the roof had happened so quickly that the idea that Moriarty would have back-up plans had completely knocked me for six. Of _course_ Moriarty would have a failsafe. He knew who to target to best hurt me; naturally he would have something in place if any of those plans were disrupted.

Stupid, stupid, stupid, _stupid_!  The extent of my own obtuseness was unforgivable. In this, I was just as complicit as my idiot brother. I paced back and forth in the small flat, my feet cold against the wooden floorboards as I walked the twenty-two steps across the sitting room, only to turn and stalk back. My first night here, almost the first thing I had done was arrange chairs and the sofa so that it mimicked the layout of 221B. It was perhaps a bit pathetic, but it gave me the exact pacing space that I’d had for the past eighteen months, and that was vital to my thinking process.

My mobile vibrated in my hand. I looked down at the cracked screen. Even after the events on the roof, I had still adamantly refused to allow Mycroft to buy me another phone. Shameless sentiment, but watching the telltale muscle twitch in my older brother’s jowl- Mycroft’s version of a strop- was very nearly the only thing I had for entertainment in recent weeks.

The way his face had twisted into something approaching pity after my reaction had been immeasurably worse.

[Text sent: 23 June, 2012, 02:12 am]

**\- He is unharmed. So is the housekeeper. They were upstairs together.**

I felt the tension in my shoulders sag, causing me to stop mid-step.

My Homeless Network had been instrumental in providing me with information, since my damnable brother had proven even more useless than usual. Since my “death,” John had not left the flat. Mrs. Hudson had only left once, and had been so distraught that she had only made it to Speedy’s before Mrs. Turner had stopped her and rather forcefully steered her to a strong cup of tea.  Given that Mrs. Turner had been an alcoholic for over ten years (yellow, papery skin, burst blood vessels in her nose, obvious) I rather suspected the cup had a bit more liquid courage in it than tea.

The simple fact was that I did not have enough data. I had erroneously envisioned that I would be able to unravel Moriarty's web and be back with John by Christmas. In the eleven days since my death I had only found one of the three snipers, and that was completely by chance.  Mycroft’s incompetent underlings had tipped their hand and before killing herself, the sniper had triggered one of the traps.

It was painfully obvious that the explosion had been meant for Mrs. Hudson.  

I knew that Mycroft was likely whisking the two of them away to a much safer location. “Taking care of matters,” as was his wont.  I’m certain the other residents of Baker Street must have more than a passing fear for the gas pipes at 221. That was, if their tiny little minds bothered to think of why there had been two explosions in such a relatively small amount of time at all.

 

Highly doubtful.

[Text sent: 23 June, 2012, 02:49 am]

    **-Everything under observation. Will update soon. Do try to eat something. You know how Mummy worries.**

I snarled down at the cracked display, ready to throw the sodding thing. Oh _really._  Because of course I would be feeling a bit peckish right after my John was blown. _Up.  ‘Soon?’_ Would it kill the great lump to use a little specificity?  And how could he claim to--

Oh bloody, buggering fuck. Of _course._  

It wasn’t even the first time Mycroft had alluded to an observation. I whirled, stepping over the coffee table, ignoring the small crack it gave under my weight as I bent for my laptop.  Necessity had given me a more than passing familiarity with the inner workings of the British Government, and dipping behind their firewall for access to Mycroft’s surveillance cameras was laughingly simple.

I could quickly see that the files were split over two servers. One section was past files, ranging in length and file format.  I wasted no time copying them.  The other file was a live feed.

My throat tightened as I clicked. I had no illusions that Mycroft was not already aware of who had hacked into his feeds- indeed; he had practically sent me an engraved, monogrammed invitation by “casually” dropping the word observation into our conversation.  

Further proof that the target had been Mrs. Hudson was not necessary. I could see that 221B was mostly unchanged by the blast. My eyes flicked over the new crack in the smiley face wall, and it looked like one of the sitting room windows had been shattered from the force of the blast, but it was not the apocalyptic scene of damage that I had envisioned when Mycroft had first texted me.  There was some smoke lingering in the air.  Some of my books had fallen off the shelves. A fine layer of plaster dust hung over everything like a light dusting of snow.

I could control the camera from my laptop and wasted no time in clicking to the other surveillance cameras scattered throughout the flat:

John’s room: empty.  Bed made in almost painfully neat hospital corners, the obvious habits of a military man.  A lamp had fallen over, but otherwise there were no outward signs of occupation.  Of course. Most likely sleeping on the sofa.

(--After nightmares, John would often pad out to the living room in bare feet to either curl up on the sofa, or to stare broodingly out onto the London night if the sofa was otherwise occupied. More often than not I could chase him back to bed with the sounds of my violin, attempting to calm and soothe to the best of my rather stellar ability.

John must have his sleep.

I just ensured that he was able to rest for a few more hours before his alarm clock went off with its blaring insistence. I never acknowledged my impromptu concerts, and John certainly never did something as painfully pedestrian as thank me for what he surely had to know I was doing...)

My breath tightened painfully in my chest.

The kitchen: shards of broken crockery strewn about. One cabinet open, empty, obvious. The detritus of my lab had been flung rather haphazardly into a box in the corner of the room, experiments no doubt binned. Not John. Mrs. Hudson? My huff of exasperation was loud in the quietness of Mycroft’s flat.

I clicked on the last camera.

My room: Bed mussed, duvet sloppily kicked to the foot of the bed, half hanging off as though the bed’s sleeper....

My observations shuddered to a halt and I stared almost solemnly at the familiar expanse of my room.

There was an oatmeal-coloured jumper tossed haphazardly next to my blue dressing gown, both balled up together on one side of my bed.

“John.”  I cleared my throat, guilt swarming in my gut.

Obviously my flatmate, my _colleague_ , my... best fr-- My thoughts skittered off in every conceivable direction as the sensitive microphone on the camera’s feed picked up John’s distinctive tread on the stair.  I swallowed hard enough that I could hear the click of my dry throat. Dimly, I was aware of my heartrate increasing as John’s steps took him closer and closer to our flat.

Another miscalculation. I had assumed that Mycroft would situate both John and Mrs. Hudson in another safehouse; momentarily forgetting of course the utterly complete stubbornness of Captain Doctor John Watson. He would have gone with Mrs. H, to see her safe. Naturally. However the idea of him being coddled by Mycroft’s endless supply of well-dressed workers would not have sat well.

Oh _God._

I felt as though I had been punched in the throat. No. I had been punched in the throat before; Uni, details deleted. This was more painful.  My fingers felt cold as they came up to flutter uselessly against my skin, as though holding the breath inside my oesophagus.

His limp was back. I could see that it wasn’t psychosomatic this time; the bright white bandage that encircled his strong thigh was caked with dried blood. The camera did not allow me to see his face from this angle, but I could see the shudder of the breath in his body as he cast his gaze around the flat, watched as his shoulders hunched defensively in on himself.

John allowed himself a moment to huddle against the door before pushing himself up and limping towards the kitchen. One of the constants of the universe- John took comfort in the small, familiar necessity of making tea. Inflicting order on disorder.

I flipped to the kitchen camera and now I could see the painful bruising under his eyes. Even Anderson would be able to put together that John was not sleeping well.  I flinched to see that he had aged in the almost fortnight since Bart’s.  His hand trembled as he made the tea, clenching into a fist as he waited for the kettle to boil.

The rigid frailty of his shoulders did not waver as he poured the hot water into ... into...

I could not help the way I leaned forward to touch the image of John’s face on my laptop screen, observing in an almost detached way the way his lip trembled once, his face crumpling for just a moment like a child whose world had just ended. The harsh breath could have come from my own worthless lungs as he visibly composed himself, muscle in his jaw twitching as he bit painfully at the fragile skin, refusing to lose his composure.

John had made my cup of tea without realizing it, the long-familiar habit as much a part of him as the hospital corners on his unused bed.  I could not help but deduce how often this happened as I watched John calmly pour the untouched tea in the second mug into the sink.

A quick glance at the broken shards of crockery was answer enough.

********

 

**-Now-**

John had no way of keeping time. He knew that hours had to have passed by the way he’d been forced to relieve himself, like a dog stuck in a pen. His throat was painfully dry, and his requests for water had gone unanswered.  

A thudding, furious anger echoed the throbbing in his head as he sat in his own filth, staring hard in the darkness at the clear wall where the light had been, as though he could force the madman holding him to show him Sherlock by stoicism alone.

To keep himself awake he went over simple facts in his head.

He and Sherlock had been kidnapped.  

John was being held in a box. It was more crate than coffin-sized. The width from side to side was roughly a meter and a half. Since his hands were tied behind him, John couldn’t be certain, but he’d been able to guess by inchworming around. There was a bit more space from head to foot.  He could lie down with the top of his head touching the back wall and point his toes in his filthy trainers, so the length was a bit more than his own height.

His breath had gotten a bit wonky when John realized that this box had to have been built to his height specifications.  It had taken a good five minutes before his heart had stopped jumping around.

When John planted his arse on the floor and sat up, the very top of the crate was mere centimetres above the top of his head.  

Even more troubling was the realization that each surface was made of a different kind of material. The topmost one was a metal alloy.  His head hadn’t liked him much when he found that out by _thunking_ his temple against the top during one of his less than graceful inchworm moves. The southernmost plate near his toes was the thick plastic that allowed him to see the monitor. The light hadn’t been turned on since he’d gotten the brief glimpse of his friend.  

In the hours that passed, John couldn’t tell what material was to his right, only that it was blistering hot to the touch. Somehow the heat didn’t fill the small space, but when he touched it he hissed with pain. His mind shuddered away from examining the amount of work that had gone into keeping him captive.

The wall to his left was the one with the current. It reminded him of the bug zappers near the field hospital by Camp Bastion, only John didn’t much care for the fact that in this particular situation he was the bug being zapped.  After hearing the distorted voice, curiosity and boredom had him brushing his shoulder against the wall, tensing his sore body for the same level of electricity from before.  His ribs still throbbed from his first attempt. Pure tenacity had kept him trying, noticing that the strength of the current petered out over time.

So not only kidnapped, but stuck in a box by some mad fucker who had _planned_ on John being here.

John, having already recited the names of the bones from his skull down to his feet, started again, from feet to skull. He caught himself nodding off twice.  He knew that he would not be able to stay awake much longer. Between exhaustion and his head injury, he was just about at the end of his tether.  “Distal... phalanges. Metatarsals...”

“Not getting bored are we?”

John’s eyes popped open. Instead of the blinding lights from before, one single bulb illuminated the man standing outside of the box. John squinted, but with his dilated pupils he couldn’t make out any distinct features. He rolled his eyes when he realized that part of the glass was frosted to further disguise his captor.  Again, a small detail, yet intricately planned. It was surprisingly creepy.

John opened his mouth, then shut it, refusing for a moment to answer. Sherlock’s lanky body flopping onto the lino flashed in his mind’s eye and John grit his teeth, forcing himself to take a deep, steadying breath, ignoring how his cracked ribs pulled.

“You look filthy, pet. I have a fix for that.” The electronic, distorted voice chuckled, and for a second John was shocked into immobility. Pet? Only one other man had. Was it possible that...? No. No, Sherlock had been _adamant_ that Moriarty was dead.

But Sherlock had been wrong before. Not often, true. But often enough.

John heard a squeak and tilted his head up, straining to focus his bleary gaze on the roof. A small section near where the man was standing opened, and John froze to realize that a large hose, similar to one used with housefires was being fed through the small opening.  His fuzzy brain only had a split second to process what was about to happen before water began gushing out of the hose. John couldn’t help the shriek as he attempted to fling himself away from the wall with the current, only to knock his head painfully against the wall with the blistering heat.

It took several heartbeats before his panicked body realized that the power had been cut to both the sides of the crate.  There was no place to hide from the water. John attempted to fling himself to the monitor wall, but the spray of the high-pressured hose completely permeated the small space, leaving nowhere for John to hide.  He was drenched utterly, the muck on his body sluicing off him and leaving him violently shivering.

“You’ll notice that the floor drains your mess quite nicely. It would be a shame if I forgot to flip the lever that opened the drain, yeah?” The voice cackled, but John was too overwhelmed to respond. He curled up as best he could, ignoring his throbbing head and bright starburst of pain from his ribs, waiting for the water to stop.

Finally though, his captor decided enough was enough. The faint drips tapered off to a dibble, then the wet _plonk_ _plonk_   _plonk_  of taps that hadn’t been turned off properly.  John heaved a teeth-chattering sob of relief, beyond caring what the crazy fuck thought of him.

“Very nice, Doctor. Stand up, please.” The hose was drawn back.  “It appears that you need some medical attention. Forgive my lapse; I was dealing with your erstwhile partner. Bit of a pain in the arse, that one, eh?” Incredibly, the voice had adopted an almost commiserating tone, as though he and John had been mates for years.

John blinked.

 _Was_ dealing? What the sodding fuck did _that_ mean?

“Come now, Doctor. Just had a bit of a setback is all, yeah? No big.  Shouldn’t really be a shock, really that the great ponce would be so selfish as to just leave you behind.  Not like he hasn’t done that before, eh? Now turn. Have to clean you up a bit more. Bit of a plan change, but if nothing else, over the last three months, I’ve learned that I can be surprisingly adaptable.”

John’s sluggish mind was whirling, adrenaline giving him the kick in the arse he needed to make him actually _think_ instead of just react. Aware that he was still shivering, John scooted his arse over slowly, feeling sick when the leather-coated fingers pushed through the hole in the glass, pushing at the bend of his neck. John was thinking so hard that not cooperating didn’t even occur to him.

Sherlock had gotten away? Was that a lie? Was this just another way to fuck with him? Honestly, John had expected more in the way of mental fuckery given the scope and plan for the little box of horrors. The water had been a nasty trick; all the more for the sodding wait of anticipation for _something_ to happen. If Sherlock _had_ escaped, that would explain the way John had been figuratively cooling his heels for hours.  Or, Sherlock was still on a floor somewhere, out cold. Maybe even dead.

No. Ridiculous. Sherlock Holmes had successfully faked his own death. Sherlock wasn’t dead. John refused to think any further along those lines.

John tensed, freezing in place at the cold slide of a hypodermic needle as it slid into his neck. Whatever it was reacted to his painfully empty stomach quickly, sending the dim light of the box swirling unpleasantly before his eyes. John landed face-first on the floor, his cheek smooshing uncomfortably on the floor.  It sent a starburst of colour ricocheting behind his eyes.

 

“Fuck.... _me_.”

 

The cackle of his captor’s laughter was the last thing John heard before he finally passed out.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Tbc!
> 
> (I asked on Tumblr if anyone was up for being a full-time britpicker, and haven't heard back. I got two anons that caught two mistakes. THANK YOU ANONS. However, if either of you are interested in being MINE (cough) then please email me or msg me as your other you. :)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, jlm is my best bb Jen and thank you so, so much for helping and encouraging me to actually do this.

**Chapter 3**

 

**-Interlude-**

********

It seemed, rather unsurprisingly to the few that knew the Holmes brothers even slightly, that when things took a turn for the worse, they did so rather spectacularly. It was, as Anthea’s mum would have said (way, _way_ before Anthea _was_ Anthea or Danaë, Cassandra or Hermione, when she was plain old Vera Jones) “Summat ought t’ be done about that, yeah? ‘S all gone more’n a bit tits up, if y’ask me.”

Indeed. Her mum had been wise in all the ways that mattered.

It wasn’t her place to question. When Mr. Holmes had a task for her to complete, she did it with no fuss. Anything and everything: from fetching tea to helping coordinate small, domestic matters involving no less than fourteen of her Majesty's highly specialized SIS agents.  Anthea was very good at her job, and not voicing her opinion was only one of the many things Mr. Holmes required of her.

She slipped silently into the room, careful to keep her face blank as the two voices rose.  Sherlock’s was easily discernible; the normally velvet-smooth baritone was hard to forget. He was shouting furiously at his brother. Also not a surprise. The younger Holmes, for all he claimed to eschew emotions, had no issues expressing his extensive frustration and hatred for his eldest brother. Mr. Holmes’ voice, in contrast, was smooth and rather higher pitched. What caused Anthea to stumble in shock was the... worry in her employer’s tone.  She shifted uncomfortably in the doorway. Had the information in her hands not been of the utmost importance, Anthea would have made her way out of Mr. Holmes’ office, so as to not intrude on the brothers’ ... discussion.

“-- and what, dear brother.... exactly what _help_ can I expect from you? Your intolerable... _incompetence_ is what got John...” Sherlock broke off, mid-sentence, biting off each syllable as though the words were so disgusting that he couldn’t tolerate having them in his mouth any longer than he had to.

Anthea watched as Mr. Holmes’ mouth opened slightly, as if to reply.  The crash of the paperweight that once lived on the edge of Mr. Holmes’ desk was loud against the wall.  

It wasn’t even that expensive of a trinket, really.  Last year, Mr. Holmes had insisted that she go on a bit of a holiday, despite her strenuous protests. Coming back was always worse after she’d been gone on a scheduled business-related trip, as though disorganization and ineptitude had run merrily amok while Anthea was away. Two weeks spent completely out of touch? Horrible.

But Mr. Holmes had insisted.

In retaliation, Anthea had bought the most excruciatingly tacky piece of kitsch she could find. The glass itself was clear, but inside the small paperweight was a sparkly, glittery surface. On the surface, spelled out in blinking LED lights of every neon colour imaginable (and a few that weren’t) were the words **ME- BOSS** :  you- little person

Anthea certainly had never intended for Mr. Holmes to keep the bloody thing, let alone display it prominently on his desk where anyone could see it.

Anthea couldn’t help the small sound she made when it shattered like a small bomb, spraying the Agra rug with both glitter and neon slivers of glass that winked malevolently in the faint sunlight that shone, despite the three weeks of purely ghastly weather, into the large corner office.

Both sets of eyes turned to hers at once. Mr. Holmes’ gaze looked weary beyond the greatest measure and Sherlock’s..... Sherlock looked as though he’d been absolutely gutted.

Anthea swallowed, hard. The look on Sherlock’s face was gone in the blink of an eye. It was tremendously telling that it took a few heartbeats before the expression on Mr. Holmes’ face solidified to its customary blank slate. Immediately, Anthea found herself bristling on behalf of her employer, although  taking care to keep such tells off her own face.

“You are needed in the viewing room, sir.” Professionalism kept Anthea’s voice clear. “And your head needs medical attention,” she said to Sherlock, frowning.

The thin man, somehow looking less solid without his customary coat and finely-tailored suits, made a disgusted sound in the back of his throat.  More than familiar with Sherlock’s antics, Anthea simply spoke over him before he could protest. “You will be of no use to your doctor if you collapse from a concussion, and you really are bleeding rather profusely.”  Anthea kept her own expression a little bored, as though telling him to take advantage of simple logic was tedious beyond belief. The twitch of Mr. Holmes’ lower lip was confirmation that she was doing the right thing, when normally she would have waited for his instruction.

It was rather obvious that Sherlock had no interest in any of his brother’s suggestions.  

Anthea ducked her head, texting quickly.  “Dr. Posey will meet us in the viewing room.” He was one of the few doctors on this floor with adequate security clearance, so it was hardly a difficult choice. Anthea turned, pausing for only a moment, continuing to text as though she could care less whether the two of them followed her or not.

The viewing room sounded pleasant, but the fact that there were three different security features before one was even allowed on the floor made certain that only a few people could access its contents. If some unsavoury character happened to bypass the swipe card that logged who was attempting to gain entry, or the keypad where a code and thumbprint must be scanned, there were two armed agents sitting behind glass who had standing orders to shoot anyone they did not physically recognize on site. The panic button not only sent out a signal to other agents within the building (not-so incidentally informing Mr. Holmes of the attempted break-in,) but it sent out a pulse that would render all the computerized information in the small room useless.

Anthea texted that she and Mr. Holmes would have a guest and to expect a doctor to join them before they made it to the lift.  The ride down to the viewing room was silent, neither brother willing to continue their discussion- if one could call it that- in front of her.

That was fine. It wasn’t as though Mr. Holmes wouldn’t send her all the information she needed anyway.

And to tell the truth, she really couldn’t blame either one of them. Sherlock... well. With all he had done to keep Doctor Watson safe, the fact that this had happened now, under Mr. Holmes’ watch was a terrible kind of irony.

Her phone vibrated and Anthea glanced down. Only one phone, other than her own, had the capability of receiving a signal this deep underground.

[Text received: 7 October, 2012, 12:00 pm]

    **-One of our own; need confirmed. - MH**

Anthea hiked an eyebrow. Her mum had been right.  A ‘bit tits up’, indeed. The fact that it had to have been one of Mr. Holmes own agents, a man or woman trusted,  with a finely-specialized skill set.... She allowed herself a small sigh. The staff meetings _alone_ for the next year certainly would be less than pleasant.

She would wait until the Holmes brothers were safely ensconced in the heavily-encrypted information in the viewing room before she assembled the information needed to discover which of Mr. Holmes’ agents were working with Jim Moriarty.  

The lift doors opened with a soft chime. Anthea walked purposefully through the checkpoints, treating them as the afterthought that they were.  The agents on duty already had all the information they needed to recognize Sherlock Holmes, which was probably a very good thing given his present mood. She didn’t anticipate that he would hold still for lengthy chats or identity confirmations.

As soon as Mr. Holmes crossed past the threshold, each agent employed inside straightened slightly, becoming more focused on their tasks.  Anthea idly noted the commotion as Dr. Posey was scanned through and crossed to an empty station to begin her own research.  She purposefully sat where she could watch the Holmes brothers. Anthea didn’t fool herself into thinking that she was hiding her regard from the two most observant men in Europe, yet neither of them seemed to notice her presence as their attention was caught by the camera tech on duty.

Perfect.

 

It was her job to fade into the background. Anthea allowed herself a small smile as she logged in.

Mr. Holmes shifted his weight, gripping his umbrella as the tech clicked a few times, bringing up the camera footage. Dr. Posey bustled forward, taking care of the large gash on the back of Sherlock’s head.  Anthea was certain that it was only the utter shock of seeing what was on the camera footage that kept the younger Holmes still for the doctor’s ministrations.  A large part of her doubted that he was even aware of what the good doctor was doing.

The timestamp showed that it was early morning. Fog swirled around Doctor Watson’s feet as he came storming out from under the awning. He had walked out without his jacket, clad only in a striped jumper. John Watson was clearly furious. His hands were clenched at his sides and his jaw looked like a block of granite.  It was a frequent pose for those who dealt with Sherlock Holmes.  

Whatever had made Doctor Watson- and really, Anthea reckoned after you had bought pants for a man (that had been one time, and she suspected Mr. Holmes had had more than a bit of a joke at the good doctor’s expense) you could call the man by his first bloody name- that furious must have been rather spectacular if it resulted in the man leaving the protective detail he’d been living under for so long.

“Where are the agents on duty?” The tech’s shoulders hunched slightly at Mr. Holmes’ question.

“Moss and Moran. Yes, sir. I have that information right...” The tech paused the playback, then stretched, rolling his desk chair over to another monitor and calling up the information. “According to Agent  Moss, she and Moran were detained by foot traffic at the bakery. By the time they realized the subject was moving, Mr. Watson and Mr. uh,” the tech darted a quick gaze to Sherlock who stood like a statue, cold and still as he focused that great brain on the tech’s words. “ Uh. Holmes. Had been. Er. Abducted.”

He unpaused the video. John took another two steps, then whirled.  They could hear- off camera- Sherlock’s cry of warning. The angle of the surveillance camera looked to be off kilter- only recording part of the doorway, the stoop, and the pavement, instead of where John and Sherlock struggled with their captors. The tech paused the playback again and switched to another camera’s angle.

This camera was also obviously tampered with. It only showed Sherlock’s long, lanky body as he collapsed on the pavement. The sound was up and they could hear them being attacked, hear the squeal of tyres against the kerb as the vehicles sped off.

Sherlock turned to look at his brother, and Anthea winced at the way Mr. Holmes actually flinched at the undiluted emotion on his younger brother’s face.

Anthea already texted both Moran and Moss, informing them that they would be taking a meeting with Mr. Holmes in fifteen minutes then bent to her task.  Quickly Anthea read and filtered the information, sending Mr. Holmes a file for his perusal.

Agent Adele Moss had been with the agency  for six years, and had moved quickly through the ranks. She was known to have several weapons specialties as well as special training in hand-to-hand-combat. She had dual citizenship in both America and the UK, and had served as a liaison for two years with the CIA before she had come to Mr. Holmes’ attention. She was often commended for various details, having the single distinction of never losing any of the subjects that she was assigned to protect.  She was single, owned a small flat in Kensington, and had what looked to be a rather fluffy cat called Jess. Anthea included all of the records at their disposal, including school records and a few notes from a childhood therapist.

Agent Sebastian Moran had been recruited straight from the military. He had specialized in every weapons field available, and was widely considered to be an expert at his craft. As a child he had entered and won several sharpshooter contests, and Moran had frequently been deployed as a sniper for SIS missions. In fact, he had been pulled off the detail of a minor issue in Turkey to help protect Mr. Holmes’ brother and colleague. Moran came from a large family, all of whom were in the military. Moran also had several commendations in his file. He had a boyfriend called Andrew, although there was little information available on him, other than he was rumoured to be a computer specialist. Anthea made a note to follow up with information on Moran’s significant other, and added this information to Mr. Holmes’ file.

Anthea watched as Sherlock finally jerked away from the doctor, only to push the hapless tech out of the way and begin queuing up the films again, ignoring the man’s useless sputtering.  

For the first time since entering the viewing room, Mr. Holmes met Athena’s gaze. The worry from earlier was gone. No surprise there. Mr. Holmes wouldn’t deem to show such naked emotion in front of subordinates. Anthea tried her damndest to ignore the strange, fluttery feeling in the bottom of her stomach at the realization that perhaps, to Mr. Holmes, she was not considered a subordinate.

She frowned.

That was a ridiculous thought, and had nothing to do with the current crisis.  After copying the file to her own records, Anthea logged out and saw to making sure Sherlock had copies of all the surveillance footage, such as it was.

“Sherlock. Copies of those files have been sent to your email address, as well as the case notes from both Agents Moran and Moss.”  

Sherlock ignored her, muttering under his breath as he once again watched the films. Anthea only caught a few words here and there- mostly bitten-off curses. She knew from experience that he was deducing; taking in every single iota of information that the films would give him.  The small chirp of Sherlock’s message notification seemed inordinately cheery in the quiet room.

“Anthea. I believe we are expected elsewhere. Coming, dear brother?”  Mr. Holmes’ grip on his brolly tightened and Anthea knew her employer had to be berating himself. It was simply unfathomable that he had allowed someone they knew to compromise the safe house that had held Sherlock and Dr. Watson.  

Sherlock hissed, sounding like a furious cat. He was tremendously pale, causing the small contusions to stand out on his face like drops of painful ink on a spotless piece of linen. He stood up and clutched his phone, looking down at the notification. Anthea followed the two brothers out of the viewing room and back to the lift.

“The two agents report that they are on their way.” Anthea reported more for Sherlock’s benefit than Mr. Holmes’. It was a pathetic attempt to get his mind focused on something other than his missing friend, and she felt terribly pathetic at both the attempt and its reception.  The lift doors couldn’t open quickly enough.

Mr. Holmes stopped short of the small room, standing back so that he could precede his brother into the room. Anthea tilted her head, pausing when her employer did.

“Thank you, Anthea. Your... assistance has been.” Mr. Holmes paused. His blue gaze sharpened, intensified. “Invaluable, as usual.”

Anthea blinked, nonplussed, trying to hide her surprise. “Of course, sir.” She kept her voice professional, allowing herself a small, acknowledging smile.

“Two agents. Possibly three. Outside help, obvious. Knew where the surveillance cameras were. Knew how to be certain that they would not show the details of John’s abduction.”

“Sher--lock.” Mr. Holmes drew out his younger brother’s name as he stepped inside of the room, a slight frown on his face. “Before the agents arrive, perhaps you can explain how you came to escape? With _out_ your Doctor?”

Anthea almost dropped her phone. That. That was. Well, she knew the two brothers had more than a bit of animosity towards one another, but that had been rather low.

Sherlock stopped his furious pacing as though electrocuted. He drew himself up, straightening his shoulders and staring at his brother as though he knew exactly how he wanted to kill him. “John. Made me. Promise.” The dirty trainers and filthy t-shirt and jeans did nothing to detract from the barely-restrained fury.

Oh. Clever doctor. Anthea stared at her phone, feeling painfully awkward.

“Hm.” Mr. Holmes crossed to the small desk, sitting down behind it with a small, disdainful sniff. While Anthea was certain that the small mess from the paperweight had been cleaned up, she knew that Mr. Holmes would not want to conduct this particular interview in his office. “Rather manipulative, although I cannot say I am unappreciative of the results. Still, the fact that your doctor was able to get you to promise something, and _adhere_ to that promise?” Mr. Holmes’ small smirk spoke volumes. “Impressive.”

Sherlock’s gaze glittered. His mouth twisted, no doubt to deliver a scathing reply, but before he could there was a small, tentative knock on the door. He whirled and stalked to the corner facing the doorway, furthest from his brother.

Anthea heard the chirp of his phone. Sherlock was too furious to notice, visibly restraining himself from responding to his brother’s dig.  

Had she been alone, she would have sighed.  It was so obvious, really. Mr. Holmes was giving his younger brother a very obvious target to direct his rage towards. Still it wasn’t her place to comment.

Anthea opened the door and a very subdued, clearly terrified Agent Moss slipped inside, standing at a rather brittle attention. Her gaze flicked quickly to Sherlock, before settling on her boss.

“And where is Agent Moran?” The question was rhetorical, but Agent Moss winced. Both Holmes’ gazes fixed on the poor woman like predators after a particularly tasty bit of prey.  Just as her mouth opened to respond, Sherlock’s phone chirped once again. With a snarl, Sherlock glanced down, only to utterly freeze. Anthea had never seen someone become so still, so quickly.

Mr. Holmes’ phone buzzed quietly against the desk where he had carefully placed it.  

Sherlock gasped. That was perhaps why she didn’t notice when her own phone buzzed silently in her hand.  His eyes widened, going from furious to utterly wounded in the space of half a heartbeat.

Agent Moss’ ringtone: _Secret Agent Man_ , sent the woman blushing furiously, fumbling to silence her phone.

It was only chance that had Anthea standing close enough to Sherlock to catch him when he swayed. She tottered in her heels as Sherlock caught his balance by roughly grabbing her shoulder, ignoring the fact that neither of them was particularly comfortable with being touched.

The image of John Watson’s face was frozen on Sherlock’s phone.  Anthea felt the gasp of breath Sherlock took before he tapped the cracked screen.  

The doctor looked very small, spread out on a metal gurney.  His hands were stretched above his head, and it was obvious that the doctor’s shoulder was dislocated. His hands and ankles were cuffed so that he was attached to the table. Bright light shone down on the gurney, sending brief flashes back towards the camera.  There was quite a lot of bruising on his ribs and abdomen. A pair of hospital scrubs hung low on his hips.

John was either unconscious or sleeping, his head turned away from the camera.

Both she and Sherlock jumped when a face popped up in front of the camera. It was impossible to tell if it was male or female under the mask. Its eyes were hidden by sunglasses. The face put a finger to its lips in an exaggerated request for silence.  The figure tiptoed cartoon-like, with ridiculously overdone movements, towards where John lay cuffed to the table.

The hand, covered in a nitrile glove, skimmed lightly over John’s flank, up over the slight paunch of his abdomen to clamp down cruelly on the doctor’s dislocated shoulder.

John jolted, waking up with a scream of agony.  

Sherlock made a small, hurt, shocked sound as he watched his friend’s head whip around, watched his body arch as the hand yanked on the separated shoulder.  John quite obviously forced himself to hold in his pain, his teeth clamping down on his bottom lip hard enough that Anthea didn’t know how he didn’t bite through the pale flesh. He glared up at the figure, forcing his body to relax.

“Where’s...Sherlock?”

Sherlock’s long fingers dug into Anthea’s shoulder like claws. She winced, dimly aware of Mr. Holmes barking orders into a phone. Agent Moss set her phone onto the desk before two other Agents escorted her from the office. Something about the video. Phones. The same video was sent to several phones? She frowned, and refocused, unable to make herself look away from the broken screen of Sherlock’s phone.   

 

“Oh come now, John. I can call you John, right? I mean, I feel as though we know each other so... _intimately_ after all.”  The tone was familiar, even friendly, but the voice was distorted, sounding alien and jarring to Anthea’s ears. The gloved fingers skimmed across the doctor’s collarbone. “But all this... is rather tedious. Jim left rather specific instructions for me to follow and we best get to them, eh? But before we do- I need you to look over at that camera for me.”

The person in the mask forcibly turned John’s head, bending down so that their heads were together, waving frantically as though taking a holiday snap. “Hiiiii! Smile, John, your detective is no doubt waaatch-ing.” The distorted voice sounded hideous as it sing-songed. It leaned closer to John’s ear in a mockery of a whisper. “He likes to watch, you know.”

 There was a grating, echoing laugh, then it slowly changed as the electronic distortion was removed, becoming a  low, cultured voice. “Oh! I almost forgot. I’m sure your brother already knows this but...” The figure took off the mask and gloves, humming a jaunty tune under his breath.

It was Sebastian Moran.

The video cut off abruptly.

For a heartbeat no one in the small office moved.  Sherlock jerked away from Anthea, stalking towards his brother, face twisted in a murderous rage. Anthea moved without thinking, sweeping Sherlock’s long legs out from under him so that he crumpled onto the floor, landing hard on his arse. He looked not unlike a colt who had failed at taking its first steps.

Anthea took a slow, steady breath. “You’re supposed to be the most brilliant man in Europe. Perhaps you can focus that blinding intelligence on finding your friend instead of murdering your brother?” Anthea forced a small smile. “It is so desperately difficult to find such excellent dental.”

  
  
  
TBC!


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4**

A/N: Mind the warnings here.  Long chapter is long.  Some John/OMC and light d/s tones. (sort of? Well, you’ll see what I mean.) Gore, little bit more John whump, then it will get better bbs. Promise.

**-Before-**

Shame was rather a new concept for me. I was fully cognizant of what so-called normal society thought of what I was doing, and prior to this I would have been the first to say that I had the self-discipline to restrain myself (not often, but yes, when I felt it was warranted) yet I simply could not make myself stop. Not when it came to John.

It had been a filthy little flat in Kyrgyzstan where I had  first realized that my habit of ‘just checking in’ on John during my absence was less of a kindly check-in, and more of an obsessive need to see that he was... whole.

He wasn’t of course. Bags under his eyes, greyish pallor to his skin, the fact that he had dropped at least a stone, all obvious, all utterly baffling. I had honestly not expected for John to be this affected by my death. I did understand that he would be wrapped in sentiment, but I was led to believe that after a moderate period of grief, he would move on with his dull, boring life.

Even more surprising was the realization that I... ached. Even now as I recount this, I feel like an utter knob for sounding so sentimental, but the fact remains that I missed my blogger. My friend. I missed him _dreadfully_. The oddest little things would refuse to stay on their proper shelf in my Mind Palace: the smell of his aftershave (the every day one, not the ‘date’ one), the way he would scrub down the toilet and bathroom sink like he was going to be performing heart surgery on the porcelain, but would leave a mountain of dirty dishes on his desk, the way he would get that tiny glow of admiration when I had said something particularly brilliant- all tiny, insignificant things that I should have been able to delete.

I had had one of those periods of ennui; bored and listless as I waited for confirmation of the minor little crime boss to approve my plans. So tedious. Breaking into Moriarty’s web meant several different aliases, all of whom had their own stories and skill sets. My damnable brother was, point of fact, good for _some_ thing, and had kept quite a few of his minions busy by confirming the little nibbles as one alias after another was checked for its validity.

The filthy flat in which I had been occupied at the time had one room; no furniture except for a bed that at first glance had made me resolute not to allow my bare skin to touch its clearly unsanitary surface.  I had a blanket that I was stretched out on, fully clothed.  There was no attached en suite. Several tenants shared the dismal little room. All-in-all, quite a few steps down from Mycroft’s posh flat where I had hid previously.

The flat, however, had boasted one thing.  An arms dealer by the name of Torgutav. He was rather a large fly in Moriarty’s web, and he happened to live above me. It had been child’s play to set up the camera and recording equipment, ensuring that the tedium of a surveillance was alleviated by informing Mycroft of the little fish my net had caught.  Certainly I wasn’t planning on watching the petty criminal. It was bad enough that I could _hear_ what he was doing with the barely-legal whore that visited him in his room every Tuesday.

Still, thinking of surveillances had made me think of John, and, as my impulse control was rather laughable when it came to my former flatmate, it had taken only moments before I was once again logged into the feeds in 221B.

I had tapped impatiently on the plastic of my laptop, waiting for the hack to load. It was rather necessary that I ensure that my signal was bounced through several different servers before the familiar surroundings of my home appeared in miniature through Mycroft’s feed.  My fingers had stopped mid-tap, my mouth unhinging just slightly.

John.

It was immediately apparent what he was doing, yet the thought of shutting the laptop and leaving him to his privacy never crossed my mind. A quick flick of my gaze around the dim room had several different sources of data (light dusting of water on John’s chest, discarded towel, half-empty bottle of scotch) filtering through my hard drive, yet the majority of my attention was focused on... _Christ_.

John, as he sat slouched on the sofa legs spread in an uncaring sprawl, head tilted back so that his eyes stared blindly up at the ceiling, lower lip planted firmly between his teeth as he stroked his prick with sure, deft strokes.  

I had felt as though I had been hit in the chest. My skin had been too hot, no. Too _cold_ as I watched John toss off. I was aware of my breathing as I had watched, heavy and accelerated until I was almost panting.  Shame warred briefly with my sudden, sharp desire to see John finish, see him spend over his fist, or perhaps his chest; the sofa where I had spent a good deal of my time.

John though, stopped just before he would have orgasmed, trailing his hands back over his stomach and chest, leaving his red, twitching prick alone as he spread his legs a little more, adjusting how he sat. The light sweat on the backs of John’s thighs squeaked against the leather surface of the sofa, and I had found myself biting my lower lip.

I had been uncomfortably aware of my own body as I watched, of the way my clothes rubbed against suddenly too-sensitive skin, the fine fabrics itchy and much too rough. I shifted on the disgusting bed in the filthy little flat and gripped the edges of my laptop hard enough that my fingers looked like those of a corpse, bloodless and claw-like as they clutched the thin plastic surface.

John had forced himself to slow down, to back away from the edge of his own desire, and I jerked my gaze up to his face, all at once curious as to what woman he was imagining. Sarah? That saccharine- sweet Morstan woman from the coffee shop? Some other faceless, nameless body- a soft, jiggling pair of breasts, a sense-memory of sliding into slick wetness, a gasping, breathy moan as painted nails scratched and clutched at John’s shoulders?

I had watched as John reached for his drink, throwing it back blindly and resuming his previous position. The muscles of his throat trembled as he shuddered when his hand, cold from the ice in his glass, stroked along his shaft and I found myself licking my lips as he started again. The circle of his first few fingers and his thumb pulled down the foreskin before tightening so that John had to fuck up into his own hand, feet braced on the floor as he changed his grip. I watched as he began to flush, the ruddiness in his cheeks spreading slowly down his neck, over his slightly tanned shoulders and chest.

My throat had gone utterly dry as I watched John finish stroking himself, shaking, quiet except for a sharp cry that he couldn’t bite back. He was completely lost in his head; his hands touched his body as a lover’s would, and I was at once so immensely jealous and disgusted with myself that I slammed the laptop shut and shoved it off of my lap so that it fell onto the floor with a soft thunk.

Luckily, the gunshot from Torgutav’s flat had provided a welcome distraction from my guilt, and I had put the whole incident from my mind. Not deleted, no. But put on a special shelf in my Mind Palace where I could re-examine when I had the time and inclination to do so. Obviously, it had been much easier to just put the incident from my mind completely.

Until Paraguay.

****

Paraguay had necessitated a controlled relapse. Completely within my control of course. Mostly.  Mycroft had been adamant that I not involve myself in this particular aspect of seedy underworld crime, yet it had been laughingly simple to set myself up as a distributor. My chemistry skills produced a very profitable product. Now of course I realized that it had been too simple, but Kirill had presented such a juicy, tempting fruit.

John had often told me that my plans lacked a proper amount of preplanning and had he known what I had got myself into he would have been tediously vocal on the subject.  

Not to mention smug, once my injuries had healed.

Unfortunately, Kirill was not as much of a moron as I had originally thought. I had stupidly tipped him off, and as a punishment, he made certain that I was injected with my own drugs.  I did manage to kill him on my way out, but it had been rather a close thing, interspersed with the furious functioning of my mind as it processed both the additional inward and outward stimuli.  How I had stumbled to my hotel room was much more luck than skill, and once again I had found myself watching John.

Seeing him made my body react.

Even now I remembered how I could feel my pulse thudding, heavy and much faster than normal, even as the chemical cocktail began to wear off.  My skin had felt too tight once again as I had watched John stare at something, his face curiously blank. Even switching camera angles did not afford me a clear view, but I had been able to deduce that whatever the object was, it was one that was causing John some level of stress.

Mrs. Hudson had called and with a flash John had hidden the object and had turned towards the door with his face arranged in pleasant surprise. Unless one looked at his eyes. It did not surprise me that Mrs. Hudson missed it as she clucked around, making tea and arranging the pasties she had obviously made. My razor-clear gaze had been unable to look towards Mrs. Hudson’s face for very long; it was strangely painful to look away from John even for a moment.

My mouth had watered, and I clearly remembered the cold, sharp sting in my chest, despite the lethargy that was slowly replacing the nervous chemical energy that coursed through my veins. I had felt my own pulse with something very like confusion as I watched John lean slightly into Mrs. Hudson’s frail frame, allowing her to shoulder some of his grief for just a moment, the steam from the tea curling around the both of them.

For a stupid, _stupid_ moment I had convinced myself that it was Mrs. Hudson’s cooking that was affecting me thus. My fingers had felt cold as I traced their faces on the laptop screen, watching the cosy, domestic scene. I watched until my eyes burned, unable to look away until the server (or Mycroft) had booted me out of the feed.

Events after that were muddled and fuzzy for various reasons that I have chosen not to dwell upon.

John would not approve of my weakness.

****

Were I the sort to adopt current conventional misogynistic nomenclature, I would have said that Irene Adler was a bitch.

She wasn’t of course. Unless she was being paid to be.

Yet when our paths had crossed in Laos, she had simply ensured that I was unable to hide from the fact that I enjoyed watching John to an extent that popular society would frown upon. I had been furious, because once she pointed out my proclivities; I could no longer deny what I was doing, nor why I was doing it.

Irene had contacted me through a third party, and our inevitable reunion had barely started when she took one full look at me and had frowned, as though offended. It was child’s play to deduce the flicker of emotions in her steady gaze: disgust, frustration, sadness, then a very resolute anger.  “Your doctor would not be pleased if he saw you like this, Sherlock.” Her cold hand had tightened painfully on my shoulder as she snapped out a request for a cab. I had hit my temple rather hard on the door as she bustled me inside of the small vehicle, and had refused to look at her the entire way to her flat, feeling like a small child taken to heel by his mother.

Having a _really_ unamused Dominatrix take charge of cleaning your sore, exhausted body, ensuring you slept and feeding you up was a bit of a shock to one’s system, to say the least. Not to mention all sorts of unpleasant.

It had bothered me that I had woken up naked, with only a terrycloth dressing gown to be found in the room.  The stale sweat of detoxing chemicals had made my nose curl, and I had stumbled into the en suite, noting that she had both my shampoo and preferred brand of soap.  A tiny detail, yet one that punctured my wounded anger like a sad-looking balloon.  My mind had felt like a hollowed out drum as I finished in Irene’s shower and made my way to where she sat like a cat in the sun, curled up on a window seat.

Her clear gaze had taken in my sober, well-rested and quite a bit cleaner state with a bored flick of her eyelashes, and had gestured lazily at the counter of her kitchen. I don’t know why I had expected a brief respite, but the bloody woman had not even allowed me my second sip of coffee before she spoke.

“A voyeur, darling? Surely that’s much too much kink for someone as innocent as yourself...”  The Woman simply stared at me, one eyebrow cocked high in acknowledgement of her well-placed verbal salvo. It might have well been a bomb given my reaction. In a very strange way, she had reminded me of John; unamused and full of sentiment at the state in which I found myself. Kirill’s little chemical bump had become one more way to punish myself, as excuse after excuse became yet another reason to enjoy the brief respite of my endless, whirling thoughts.

I had frozen like the proverbial deer in the headlights, not missing the small smirk of her reaction. My hand had fumbled the mug of coffee, spilling it. The burn had caused me to hiss with pain and I found myself overwhelmed, stunned in place like an utter idiot, staring at her with wide eyes.

She hadn’t spoken of it further, but the word knocked about in my skull on endless repeat.  

“I... A.  A voyeur is someone who receives sexual gratification from...” I trailed off at the look on Irene’s face, completely cowed by her derision.

“Are you actually trying to explain yourself? How very interesting.” She had stood, and I had watched her stalk closer to me, not put off at all by the soft day-dress she wore instead of her customary leather and boots.

Oh I had tried to put her off of course, to focus on why I was there. The trouble was realizing that the “third party” who had forced our reunion had done so for _my_ own good, rather than any desire to further decimate Moriarty’s web of crime.  Obvious of course now that my head was clear. Bloody Mycroft. I shudder to think of the text these two must have sent- both about my proclivities and recent drugs use. It had been moronic of me to think I had fooled my elder sibling into thinking I truly believed Irene was dead. John had been laughingly simple- avoiding the topic so as to not inadvertently hurt me. Mycroft had to have known what I was doing that cold night when I had left London to go save the Woman in front of me. Even more troubling than deducing that these two were texting each other about my welfare was the wholly unwelcome realization that I _cared._

“Hm, well I propose a little experiment then, shall we?” Irene didn’t wait for my answer, crossing the rest of the room and climbing up into my lap with hardly a break in her stride.

I had been so stunned at the sudden contact of her body, the warmth, her scent, that it had not even occurred to me to dump her off my lap by the simple expedient of standing up.   I could not imagine the look on my face, yet Irene seemed quite amused by it as she grabbed my wrist with one hand and the back of my neck with the other.  When she spoke she did so by looking directly into my gaze.

I suppose I was grateful that she was at least clothed this time. Foolishly, I had attempted brazen it out. ‘What experiment?”

In answer she smiled, refusing to look away. “John Watson.”

My pulse jumped of course. How could it not? Her smile turned smug as she felt my reaction under her fingers.

“Don’t be shy, darling. You’re the one who taught me this trick after all. Your brother has told me of your little obsession. He worries, I’m told. He wanted me to point out the foolishness of watching your Doctor at all hours of the day, and to remind you that your weakness is not an advantage here.” Irene cocked her head, her thighs tight against my own. “I suppose that means something to you?”

I had just swallowed, painfully. My throat had made a dry click. It did, but that wasn’t any of her business.

“Answer me.” Her voice was a weapon, sharp and painful.

To my shock, the words tumbled from my throat. “I am not a...” I faltered. Talking about the sexual actions of others never bothered me. Talking about my own to _this_ woman was horrifying. “A... voyeur. I have never gotten off while watching John.” I thought the crudity of my statement would shock her. Stupid of me, really.  She had been delighted.

“Just because you haven’t _‘gotten off_ ’, doesn’t mean that you haven’t desperately wanted to.” Her saying that of course made me picture it; and to my utter humiliation, my body reacted much as it usually did when I watched John. Images of John arched on our sofa flooded my mind, the picture of his cock in the circle of his hand, red and wet and coming.

Irene didn’t brush her body against me, although she had to have felt my reaction through the terrycloth. She didn’t even drop her gaze from my own, although now she was so close I couldn’t see the expression on her face. The hand on the back of my neck continued to hold me steady, while her grip on my wrist continued to take my pulse, monitoring any lie that I told. It was damnably effective.

“Interesting.”  She held me there a moment longer and backed off, giving me space and going on into her bedroom to dress for the day.

I don’t know why I had thought she would leave it at that. To say that she forced the issue was ridiculous of course, given that I could have gotten up, or left the flat at any time.  

The next few days were predictably dull. I was at a rather frustrating stand-still, having had absolutely no luck in finding Moriarty’s next in command. There were whispers of a name, but nothing that either of us could confirm.  I had no experiments to fill my time; neither did I have the occupation of my assigned tasks. To put it mildly, I was bored out of my bloody mind.

Irene was perfectly pleasant- until I stubbornly refused to eat.  Then her rather... particular personality came out in full force. It was much easier to just eat.

Boring.

I suppose that had been her plan- to lure me into a false sense of security. It was disgustingly domestic- Irene working on her own agenda, and me checking up on my various aliases. Then all at once it wasn’t.

Granted, I had not been at my best when I stumbled into the lounge, bleary-eyed after an attempt at sleep filled with nightmares and what-ifs, but seeing Irene perched on the arm of the chair, watching my laptop with a strangely intense gaze, but I still hadn’t realized what she had planned.

Until I heard John’s gasp.

I had frozen for just a moment, eyes narrowing as I took in the scene.  Her cold smile, the way her eyebrow was ticked at a perfect angle. Furiously, I leaped forward to grab the laptop. Stupid, as she took advantage of my flailing gesture to jerk me off-balance so that I fell into the chair. I was too caught by the images on the screen to stop my forward momentum. In a flash she was behind me, the laptop on the table in front of the two of us.

Data.

Younger man, in his late 20’s, ink stains on his left forefinger, some kind of bureaucratic position. It was hard to... It was desperately difficult to concentrate. I watched, unable to care that Irene was gleefully taking in my reaction like the climax of her favourite telly programme as I saw the man kiss John, saw John jerk away from his mouth and push him so the younger man was flush against the wall. John’s body slammed into his with a low grunt, and the man turned his head so that they could kiss once more. John avoided his mouth, kissing under his neck instead.

Jealousy was a bright, agonizing flare, taking away my breath. The man was as far from my body type as could be imagined, young and fit, tan, slightly shorter than John with very light blonde hair.  I tried to look away from the scene from Mycroft’s feed, feeling the sickening shame flood my extremities, causing my stomach to flutter unpleasantly. I was terribly, desperately aware that I was hard in my trousers, throbbing and over-stimulated as I watched the two of them fuck. This was so, so much more than a bit not good. John would not want _me_ of all people to see him...

Irene’s fingers tightened on my chin, the leather strangely cool against the stubble I had been much too lazy to groom away. I could hear the scrape, loud over the sound of my suddenly increased breathing.  “No, Mr. Holmes. You will watch every second. Look at him. _Watch_.”

I watched, a slight shudder overtaking me as I observed John kicking the other man’s legs apart. Dimly, as though from a great distance away, I could hear Irene’s soft breaths. She had arranged herself behind me, carefully not touching me with any part of her body, except the strong grip of her fingers on my chin. It didn't occur to me until much later that I didn’t, not once, try to avoid where she directed my attention.  

“You’re pulse is rapid, your cock is hard in your trousers, your breathing is ... lovely. I can hear how much you want him. Listen, Mr. Holmes, _listen_ to him. Listen to yourself.”

My eyes had opened slowly. I hadn’t even been aware that I had shut them. Every word that she said was brutally honest. John hadn’t even stripped either one of them. His face was buried in the nameless man’s shoulder, his fingers wrapped around the other man’s wrist as he pushed them into the wall.  I could see the flex of his buttocks as he thrust into the man’s arse; hear the cries and the grunts that filled the laptop’s speakers. My own breath was tremendously harsh, almost high-pitched with a wheeze that I couldn’t seem to control.

“Your brother wanted me to shame you into stopping your little obsession, Sherlock.”

I let out a small cry at the way she hissed the syllabant sound of my name, jerking in her grip. All of my attention was trained on watching the way the man bit his lip, pushing back into John’s thrusts.  

“What he fails to understand is that there _is no shame_ in enjoying him. You have done everything for this man. Do you think your doctor would be disgusted to know that he has your attention? _Use_ that lovely brain of yours, Sherlock. John Watson has done everything in his power to keep your attention on _him_.”

I could ignore the other man and focus on John, biting my lip as I watched the flex of muscle in his small, compact frame.  Dimly I was aware of her footsteps as she walked away, and in a flash I fumbled for the zip on my trousers, desperate to finish with John, to share some kind of intimacy with him-- as stolen as it was. My hand shook as I tightened around myself, hips arching into the tight grip of my hand. My half-strangled groan of John’s name had echoed loudly in the room, mingled with John’s grunt as he finished, biting at the man’s clothed shoulder.

It took me several minutes to regain my breath. I had flushed when I realized that Irene had left a damp flannel near the chair, and wiped myself down, then quickly managed to tuck myself back in my trousers and zip up before Irene came back with her bloody camera phone.

****

Bangladesh was, not to put too fine a point on it, where I realized everything I had done was useless. As John would say, a complete clusterfuck.

Irene kept in contact with me periodically, often when rumours of Moriarty’s man surfaced.  Not knowing was absolutely, utterly intolerable. Everything that I had done for John, for Lestrade and for Mrs. Hudson was to draw out this singular- was he singular? Was it a he even? I had no data, and no data was unacceptable. No data meant that John wasn’t safe and that? That was... no. _Not_ acceptable.

I scrubbed my hands through my shortened hair in frustration, pacing around the small single room where I was currently living. The cocaine would be no help whatsoever. Irene had managed where my own conscience had failed. Irene had seen to my detox and I was quite frankly less than willing to go through that again, yet I could still feel the itchy, twitching feel of my blood in my veins. It pushed me to act, to do something. Anything.

Watching John was my one constant. Hours upon hours. Not even my brother’s increasingly pissy texts deterred me. When he changed the servers, it practically invited me to hack the feeds again. Over the past months some cameras had been removed and others added, so at least I knew Mycroft’s surveillance was continuous.

John wasn’t doing well.

He’d stopped dating... or socializing, aside from Mrs. Hudson. After his... encounter with the nameless man John hadn’t brought anyone else to the flat. It made it impossible to deduce whether or not this was a common occurrence. Had John simply been intoxicated? Had it been John’s first time with a male partner? The level of skill (remembered and obsessed over until even I had to call a halt to my ability of recall) he had possessed made me think that John was not a stranger to his bisexuality.

(And if so, why not _me_? Why would John not have acted when I displayed clear signs of attraction? Obvious. Friends. Not attracted to my idiosyncrasies.)

He grew thinner. Spent more time in the flat. Sent Mrs. Hudson away with more and more frequency.

A lead- a whisper of a name- had sent my focus into the dregs of the criminal underworld. I am sure that Sally Donovan and her sideshow monkey Anderson would not be shocked to discover that I felt nothing with killing those men and women. Each life that I took meant that I was closer to coming home to Baker Street. To John.  As was my habit, I had gone several days without sleeping.

Several days without checking on John.

The feed connected without an issue. John was in the lounge, in the process of lifting my violin case from its customary spot on the bookshelf.  John set it down with a small click, his breathing heavy in the otherwise silent room. I watched as his steady hands unlocked the two clasps, opening the case with a small whine of the old wood. I felt my lips soften into something ridiculous as I watched him. His face was turned away, but I could clearly see his fingers brush the glossy surface, and felt my smile turn a bit wistful as John plucked a note. I doubt that he knew it was horribly flat.

“Oh, Sherlock.”

Hearing my name caused my breath to catch. John sounded—he sounded. _God_. I was so stunned that I missed watching John turn to sit on the couch. Was so focused on the man that I missed the obvious signs: the neat clothing, the tidy room, the scrap of paper folded with military precision on the corner of the table.

All at once I understood. It came to me with a twitch; so clear in my head that it was almost like it had been written there in three-inch Johnston Underground font.

I jerked so violently that the laptop slid off of my lap and onto the floor, cracking the screen and booting me out of the feed. I fumbled, landing hard on my knees and logging in again, mistyping the password twice in my haste.  No. _No_ , it couldn’t ... no. _John_.

My _phone_. Mycroft. He could... I texted on autopilot, cursing under my breath, staring hard at the indicator as the feed loaded.

[Text sent: 29 December, 2013, 3:00 am]

    **-JOHN DANGER RESPODN 221B IMMEDIATELY**

The feed loaded, my heart stopped in my chest when I saw John, looking down at his gun. He was sitting with perfect military posture, one hand on his thigh, the other holding the sig so that his wrist was cocked on his knee.  I watched as he looked around, observed the way his mouth trembled. My gravesite. His mouth had looked like that before he begged me for a miracle.

I was dialling before I could even think about what I was doing.

I was afraid to blink, to look away even for a moment. With Henry Knight, it had been about the puzzle, about showing him what I had learned before he pulled the trigger in his mania and fear. John had later told me that I had done something very much good, and the little niggle of guilt had been hard to ignore. I hadn’t talked Knight out of it for _Knight_. I had done it for The Work.

With John, I simply shut down. Every ounce of sentiment; every single thing that I was feeling was caught in this one moment. I heard John’s phone ringing from where it sat next to his-

 

( _Second leading cause of death, males 25-40. John. Suicide Note, More than half of all suicides completed with a firearm, PTSD, Oh John no, emotionally unstable to the point of acute depression NonoNO.)_

-note. His _note_ , Christ.

John’s face seemingly collapsed in on itself, crumbling into despair as he heard the ring. I was shaking so hard that I had to clutch the already cracked plastic, terrified that if I dropped it he wouldn’t pick up.

Would he answer? I had no data.

I watched his shoulders hunch, watched as his gaze looked down to the gun he held. The fingers tightened around the handle and I heard the click of John’s voicemail.

“Fuck! _John_!” My voice cracked. I hit redial. Helpless. I heard the ping of Mycroft’s return text but couldn’t look, couldn’t bear to rip my gaze from John’s face for one second.

I watched John’s wrist relax. He carefully set the gun on the coffee table with a click that made the both of us flinch. I saw the glistening of tears as they tracked down his face. He reached out blindly for the phone and picked it up, answering without looking at the display.

“Hello?”  His voice. Fucking _Christ_ , his voice. So calm, utterly devoid of any emotion. No clue to the emotional upheaval he was experiencing.

I choked, unable to speak.  I had to clear my throat, and even then only a whisper made it past my paralyzed throat. That gun. It was much, much too close to his hand.

“John.”

John’s eyes snapped open. His whole body went rigid, as though he had gotten an electric shock. Even as distraught as he was, my John had no trouble recognizing my whispered voice.

_“Sherlock?”_

**-Now-**

John was having a perfectly lovely dream. Mad as fucking hell of course, but it was rather lovely.  It was the strangest thing. John was sitting in his chair, holding their Union Jack pillow in his lap. He was naked and strange, black marks were painted all over his body. When he looked directly at them though, they swirled and dipped with blood.

Sherlock sat lounged in his blue dressing gown, draped over their sofa in his customary swoon. He was looking up at the ceiling of the abandoned warehouse like it held all the answers to all the questions in the world.

John started to feel horribly embarrassed by his nakedness, but Sherlock seemed utterly oblivious.  “Sherlock?”

“Dull, dull, _dull_!” Sherlock flailed his ridiculously long limbs, looking like an insect that had been flipped up over on its back for a moment, before he swung himself around to sit on the centre of the soda, legs open and bony elbows resting on his knees. Sherlock ran his fingers through his curly mop of curls in a way that John refused to find endearing.  “This is _tedious_ , John. You must _think_. I cannot do this for you. Come now, you recognize this place, surely?”

One of the black marks began to burn with agony. John bit his lip so that he wouldn’t cry out as it throbbed. He faltered, thoughts scattering like crumbs in a hurricane as the pain took his breath away.  

Sherlock knew though. Sherlock always knew. John blinked open his eyes, widening them a little when he saw that Sherlock had moved to his knees in front of where John sat, the cold concrete seemingly not bothering him at all. Sherlock’s hands were warm against John’s skin as he bent over the mark. His breath caused the hair on John’s leg to stand straight up and John froze as Sherlock hovered over the black swirling mass of agony, staring down at the curly head in shock.

“You must. Tell me, John. You have to tell me.” Sherlock’s voice was at least a full octave lower than his normal speaking voice. John’s mouth went dry. He felt his cheeks flush and his stomach went all funny at the intensity in the deep voice. Somehow, Sherlock’s proximity was keeping the pain at bay. Having Sherlock’s complete focus was shocking in and of itself. The fact that his cock was well more than half-hard was just ... _god_. What had Sherlock said? Shit! He was meant to be focusing!

Tell him what? John’s cheeks burned as his cock pressed into the fabric of the pillow. His hips shifted nervously in his seat. God, Sherlock would know. He would know _everything_.

“My...”

Sherlock’s lips brushed the unblemished skin next to the weird mark.  John’s groan was loud in the warehouse.  

Oh. The warehouse. That’s... oh. _Ohhh_.

John’s eyes snapped open as his back bowed with pain. One blink. Two, and he realized exactly where he was.

“Sh’ck,” John moaned, biting at his lips to keep the scream behind his teeth. His fucking shoulder. Jesus, Mary, John, Paul George and Ringo. He hadn’t been certain that it had hurt this much when he was _shot_.

There was something wrong with his lips. They felt frozen, and he couldn’t move them as they should have gone. Stroke? Perhaps. Mental trauma, certainly. That dream had felt fucking real and it hurt to know that Sherlock wasn’t there with him. In a way, that hurt as much as his body.

“My... ‘h’se,” he slurred. Shit. He had to try better. “House.”

When he saw Moran step into his line of sight, John couldn’t help the full-body flinch. Moran bent down and kissed the burns he’d inflicted in a gross parody of what Sherlock had done; only Moran did it with as much pain as possible, pressing his teeth into the fragile flesh so that John’s breath caught in his throat.

Fuck. Fuck, _fuck_.

“You know? This is a bit disappointing. I thought for sure he’d find you by now. The great Sherlock Holmes is a bit fucked up when his trusty sidekick has been... well. Kicked.” Moran snorted. “Jim told me that no matter what, I had to finish his last dance. Details, details, details. Borrr-ring!” A small fleck of John’s blood was caught in Moran’s spittle, and John was terribly afraid that if he looked at it much longer it wouldn’t matter if Sherlock found him or not; he’d be utterly mad and it wouldn’t matter.

John licked his dry lips, turning his face away from Moran’s foul breath. He wasn’t sure if it was more disturbing that Moran sounded like Moriarty when he spoke, or the thought that Moriarty had planned for John’s demise from beyond the grave. John wanted to beg for Moran to stop, but his lips still felt strange. Tingly, as though he had been electrocuted. For all John knew, he had been.

Moran had other ideas though. He gently turned John’s face back towards his. John didn’t even have time to brace himself before Moran shifted his weight, pulling on John’s dislocated shoulder. John heard something pop and the sudden flare of pain was so bright that he passed out completely, grateful for the respite.

****

No memories of Sherlock when he woke up. John was cold, curled up on himself. He was still naked but could not have cared less. It took him a few moments to realize that he wasn’t on the gurney.

Instead, he was back in the box. In a way, it was comforting, knowing that Moran wasn’t there with him. John was so dizzy; so tired. He forced himself to sit up and winced when his fingers brushed against the wall with the electrical current. It was a lower-grade shock, but it was, literally, a shock to John’s already pain-wracked system. He heard the small, hurt sound he made and hated himself for it.

John shifted rather gingerly. His foot brushed something at the far corner of the box, and John squinted, trying to see what it was. It almost felt- Could he... trust what his senses were telling him?

John inched away from the wall, desperately thrilled that he wasn’t still tied up. His toes struck the object again, and John lurched, unaware that the high-thready sound he heard buzzing in his ears was coming from his own throat.

It was his Sig.

His shoulder was so fucked that it was bloody impossible to raise the weapon with his gun hand, but he was able to check blindly, and did so. The realization that Moran had left him with only one bullet caused John to drop the gun and scuttle back to the opposite corner, as far back from it as he could go.

Time had to have stopped.

John had no other explanation. The hot wall didn’t burn all the time, but it kept John from shivering at least.  He knew, vaguely that he had stopped sweating, that his body was too dehydrated to produce fluid.

He was terribly thirsty.  

It was impossible to ignore the gun. Its presence was both a comfort and just another torture. It seemed almost kind of Moran to give John an out. But ... no. Moran had worked his and Sherlock’s security detail. Moran knew very well what John had almost done.

Dimly, John became aware of some kind of commotion outside.

Moran was coming back for him.

John felt his resolve solidify. He would do this. There was one bullet, and John Watson knew how to make it count. That sodding little worm thought that he would just off himself? Take some easy way out of his pain? Fuck that. John would bide his time, would make sure that his one bullet was used right; lodged right between Moran’s eyes.

When the top of his box was thrown open, John was blind. He’d only had a split-second to aim before his eyes were bombarded by the light. His finger squeezed the trigger.  It was perhaps, then, extremely unfortunate that once his eyes adjusted to the change, John saw that instead of Moran’s cruel grin, Sherlock’s shocked, pale face stared down at him, his eyes wide.

John felt his heart stop. Was he... was this another dream? John watched, dumb with shock as blood beaded up on Sherlock’s cheek, his shot having grazed the pale skin over Sherlock’s prominent cheekbone. He simply could not make himself move.

“I never thought that I’d say this, John but I am rather glad your aim is utter shit.” Sherlock held out his trembling hand to John, pale fingers curling around his own in a grip that was much, much too tight.  “Now come on. I think your little adventure is.” Sherlock’s voice cracked. He coughed, clearing his throat. “Over.”

 


	5. Chapter 5

 

**A/N: warnings for vomit? idek. Thanks to thatworldinverted and Diva0789 for the beta and jlm for the everything.**

 

**-Before-**

  


“Come with me, sir.”

 

Of course they were here for me. No matter that I had successfully been in hiding for several months, Mycroft always had the ability to put his thumb right on my pulse whenever he wished to do so. I had long ago been disabused of the notion that my elder sibling was omnipotent, but I had to admit that this _was_ rather impressive.

 

The female agent smiled politely at me.  I took in the sleepless night, the small run in her tights, the two pieces of white cat hair on her sleeve with a bored flick of my eyes. “I’m Agent Moss. This is my partner, Agent--”

 

I snorted. “Dull.” I stood much too quickly and faltered a little as vertigo caused my head to swim. “My brother had no doubt informed you of his wishes.” I jerked away from Agent Moss as unobtrusively as possible. Which, given my lack of sleep and the amount of stimulants- all legal, unfortunately- in my bloodstream was not very unobtrusively at all. I barked my shin rather painfully against the small seat. My seatmate, a woman who had been blessedly silent for the entire trip looked up briefly from her novel, meeting my eyes for only a moment before flicking away: the dismissal of the painfully uncurious.

 

Once the nameless agent saw that Agent Moss had me well in hand, he left to secure transportation. Ridiculous. Where did they think that I would go, if not to my-- to John? Using the transportation provided by my brother was the most efficient way possible to reach my goals.

 

Still, the wait from here to there was indeterminable. The grey streets, the furious tempo of the traffic, the murmured conversation between the two agents, my London seemed tired and tremendously tedious as I waited to arrive at our destination. To John. The male agent’s gaze met mine in the rear-view mirror and I forced my leg to remain still, jerking my gaze away to rest on the small rucksack that held my change of clothes and laptop. I suppose it was a testament to my shock that I hadn’t remembered even gathering my belongings from the baggage claim.  The male agent was, no doubt, a colossal idiot (he willingly worked with my brother after all), but I would give him no further ammunition to report to my utter git of a brother. I took a deep breath, and another, wishing rather feebly for a cigarette.

 

I was as jittery as I had ever been while using. I touched the small packet in my pocket. Traveling with it on an international flight on my person had been perhaps a bit of a risk, but the comfort was immeasurable: knowing that I could take it at any moment, yet had the willpower to not succumb to my weakness kept me calm. Well. Many had often scoffed at the logic of an addict. Still, it was a heavy weight that allowed me to focus my thoughts on the endless cycle of _why_ and _how_ in which I had found myself since calling John.

 

It had simply never occurred to me that John would choose to end his own life in such a dramatic fashion. Admittedly, sentiment was not my area- I almost smiled at the obviousness of my inner thought- but with John I had foolishly believed myself to be an expert. I simply could not fathom how the man I had left had sunk to such a state of abject depression. Oh there had been signs, for certain. But I was as guilty as Anderson in this.  I had observed, but I had not _seen._

 

And that incompetence was unforgivable.

 

“Mr. Holmes?”

 

I blinked. I was not immediately certain of where we had stopped. All I could see from around the Agent’s body was the fall of cold rain splashing on the filthy pavement.  She held an umbrella over the open door so that I could step out without becoming immediately drenched. I did appreciate the small kindness and attempted to smile my thanks.  

 

The agent’s eyes widened behind her glasses at whatever expression I had managed. Ah. I would do best to remember to leave the small, meaningless gestures of comfort to those who knew best how to use them.

 

It was not lost on me that I was stalling.

 

I bent back inside the black car to snag the strap of my rucksack and shoved it onto my shoulder, then turned, allowing myself one more deep breath. The fact that my fingers were gripping the strap tightly enough to restrict the blood flow was unimportant.

 

“Let’s go, Mr. Holmes.” I quirked an eyebrow at Agent Moss’ brusque tone. The shift of her body showed her uneasiness at being out in the open and I complied with her wishes, walking quickly to the nondescript door.

 

I forced my shoulders from their slump, jerking my chin up into some semblance of a show of courage. Ten steps later I was inside. Agent Moss started to make some comment, no doubt for me to wait for my brother’s arrival, but it was easy enough to ignore as I glanced around the room.

 

Scuff marks on the non-descript beige paint near the bannister. Fingerprints, the hand that had gripped it last had been quite sweaty. Small smear of blood. Perhaps bloodied knuckles? Not enough data.  A blink and I was up the steps. It was child’s play to deduce where Mycroft was keeping John. Only one door out of the three was shut.

 

I allowed myself a breath as I pressed my fingertips to the wood of the door. I did not know how to categorize the whirling, utterly _useless_ emotions that caused my stomach to clench with nausea. Frankly, I had no wish to. Naming them only made them more real after all. Yet I could not discount my... apprehension.

 

I had imagined meeting John after my absence in many ways. He would be angry of course. Obvious. Whatever control that made him the ideal doctor and soldier left him completely when he was furious enough. Early on in our acquaintance, I had attempted to deduce exactly how long it took for John to go from placid apathy to cold fury, but there had been too many unexpected factors that marred that particular experiment.

 

I did not care for it when John was angry at me. Our flat, which at all other times had seemed perfectly adequate for our needs, would shrink to an almost unbearable space where John’s presence was too big, too disapproving. Oh, there had been moments where I could ignore his fury, and goodness knows I was not reticent at defending whatever action had set him off, yet the tensions in the too-small flat would make me... uncomfortable. John’s livid gaze would follow me to my Mind Palace, and any work I did there was nearly impossible to complete with my usual brilliance. After only a few moments, I would find myself attempting to make amends for my oversight, disgusted at my own need to fix whatever I had cocked up, eager to make John’s face relax into the fond amusement that usually prevailed.

 

I could not fathom how this man had such a hold over me.  So, anger. Expected. Likely.

 

Deserved.

 

I flexed my fingers on the door and took a deep breath, reaching slowly for the doorknob.

 

When the door jerked open under my grip I was completely unprepared. I flinched, my whole body jerking in place as I my gaze tried to take in every single nuance of John at once.

 

Wet trainers; cuffs. Just in out of the rain then. Not at this location for long. The jeans were baggy on his too-thin frame. He wore a t-shirt and ancient-looking RAMC sweatshirt, ratty and stretched out at the elbows and collar. So, worn for comfort. I had been correct about the bloody knuckles. The second distal interphalangeal joint on John’s right hand had a contusion that was bleeding slightly from split skin. His eyes were wide, his face perfectly blank as though he was unsure if what he was seeing was quite real. Lip swollen. Eyes bloodshot, exhausted circles under his eyes. Hair was flat on one side, as though forced to lie in one position for...

 

I flinched again as John shifted, expecting a punch, only to freeze in place when John’s arms came around me, jerking me to him with an abrupt movement.

 

Oh _god_.

 

John’s touch. My throat was burning, swollen so tightly that I couldn’t make a voluntary sound if I wanted to.  I could smell him; feel the heat from his body as my arms came up to clutch at his back. It was too much. Too much data. I shut my eyes and hung on tighter, unable and unwilling to sort through the multitudinous amount of information with which I was presented.  

 

I heard an echoed strangled sound and John clutched me tighter to him, almost jerking me off-balance with the strength of his embrace.

 

Touching him after so long, after so much worry and confusion... I could not categorize how necessary this man’s presence was to my own continued existence. I could feel his rapid heartbeat against my sternum.  It was unfathomable to me that I had only fantasized about touching John in exactly this way, that this was only our first embrace. Lost in my own imaginings, I turned my head so that my lips brushed against the collar of his jumper, skating softly over the warm skin there.

 

John jerked in place. I felt his arms tighten in reflex then fall to his side.  It took quite a few seconds before I could make myself do the same, before I realized that John’s rigidity was not the same relief that I was feeling but the cold, infuriated anger from before.

 

 _Fuck_.

 

I was here clutching him to my bosom like some mad heroine and John...? A blink settled some of the whirling data to where I could comb over it at my leisure.  I dropped my arms, feeling tediously awkward.  Blood flooded my cheeks. This was Sebastian all over again; me missing some social nuance that caused others’ amusement.

 

Only, John? John was far from amused.

 

The fist came out of nowhere. I was so overwhelmed at the onslaught of my reaction that I was utterly unprepared for the sharp shot to my lip. I staggered back, dropping my rucksack and tripping back over my own feet in a gangly sprawl that sent the back of my head rocking sharply against the wooden frame of the door.

 

Another jerk on my hoodie and I was pulled inside, dizzy and confused, yet completely unable to defend myself. Unwilling. This was the least of the apology that John was owed for everything that I had done.  All of the reasons- Moriarty's plan, Moran’s thumb on the pulse of the three people that I cared for the most, jumping from St. Bart’s-  that I had clung to like some sort of righteous absolution faded in the face of his anger.

 

Dimly I heard the door kicked shut as John manhandled me inside. My arms and legs refused to work properly, my hard drive completely offline as my back slammed up against the now closed door. John kicked at my feet, his grip on my wrists brutal as he pressed them into the hard surface behind me, slotting against me so that my pelvis was pressed against his hip.

 

John’s mouth was open just slightly as he clenched his teeth, his breath hot against my lower jaw as he held me in place.  

 

My mind was blessedly blank as I licked at the blood on my lower lip, nervously waiting for John’s anger to tip over to something more savage; something that I would have to defend myself against.

 

I was utterly floored when John’s gaze dropped to my mouth, before jerking guiltily back up to my own. I opened my mouth to speak, only to close it when John tightened his grip on my wrists.  I swallowed hard, the two of us staring at each other, neither willing to speak.

 

I was humiliated to discover that I was completely hard and throbbing in my jeans, pressing unflinchingly against John’s hip.  I shut my eyes, afraid to move or react. This was so, so out of my depth.

 

There was a knock on the door.

 

John sprang away from me as though electrocuted.  I swallowed hard, wincing when I heard Mycroft’s uncharacteristically chipper, “Sherlock, do join me downstairs when you and the good doctor have...” The tubby ponce actually chuckled. “Caught up.”

 

The idea that Mycroft had actually made his own way up the steps in order to further humiliate me should not have come as a surprise. He had people for that after all.  I stood there, feeling every single place John had touched me tingle and burn and tried to exert some small attempt at controlling myself.

 

Sanding with a highly inappropriate erection with my brother on the other side of the door like some smug, fat spider was not exactly something with which I had any practice. As calmly as I could I walked to the window. The blackout curtains let in no light, but it afforded me some pathetic illusion of privacy as I focused on nothing.  The click of the door opening and the furious flurry of John’s footsteps as he ran down the stairs should not have come as a surprise. Mycroft’s slower, heavier step followed, leaving me along to collect myself.

 

I was left alone, reeling with such an influx of data that I had very little recourse. My fingertips brushed against the baggie of powder in my pocket and I hissed out a breath as control slowly returned.  I walked to the attached en suite and splashed water on my face, ignoring the two bright red flags of colour high on my cheekbones. My mouth was indeed bleeding, and the cool water felt lovely against the heated, bruised flesh.  I pushed back the hoodie and ran my wet fingers through my unwashed hair, attempting some order. There was a glass near the tap and I filled it, drinking, watching in the mirror as my hands slowly stopped trembling.

 

Downstairs, John had obviously moved from livid to resigned as he stared down at a file of information on his lap. My idiot of a brother hovered behind him, swirling a small finger of whiskey in the tumbler like one of the overly-dramatic villains in the Bond films that John had insisted I watch with him, months before I had left.

 

I did not fool myself that either man was unaware of my presence as I crossed to the chair furthest from John and flopped down in the dramatic sprawl, refusing to wince when my bruises met the uncomfortable upholstery. John became almost wooden as he froze in place, staring resolutely down at the file.

 

“Well. Isn’t this cosy.”

 

Mycroft would do well to remember that the hard-won skill set from the past months now included the best way to hide a body. I huffed an annoyed breath. I caught the roll of Mycroft’s eyes and the small spasm on John’s face- the aborted smirk before he remembered that he was furious at me.

 

The silence continued, dragged on until I was considering saying some offhand, acerbic comment just to break the tedium. It was strange that I found myself unable to settle, to ignore my brother and John’s presence enough to filter through the barrage of data presented to me from the last... I checked the time on my cracked phone.

 

No. Surely not. I could _not_ have only been here for twenty-three minutes.

 

Mycroft straightened his shoulders, lips twitching in a sickly smirk. “Well. Sherlock. I am certain that you will find the Doctor’s story... intriguing. No doubt the two of you have much to discuss.  However given your... companion’s proclivities for using his fists, I believe I shall just continue to work on a small matter over here.”

 

“Laters,” I muttered, not even close to being under my breath.  I noticed Mycroft’s pained twitch and almost looked to see John’s reaction, before the fact that he was sitting painfully still in the armchair registered.

 

John blinked at me, his gaze going from my bruised mouth, sliding slowly over the thin hoodie and tattered jeans. My own trainers were filthy, covered in the muck and detritus from god knew where.  He had a good view of them from my ungainly sprawl, and I had to check my first reaction, which was to curl up in a less open position. I had to check my second reaction too, which was to start to beg forgiveness for everything.

 

And my third which was to strangle the fucking stupid bastard for daring to attempt to harm what was mi--what I had done everything, _every. thing._ to keep safe. I kept my gaze on the carpet, unsure I had the acting ability to keep my rage off of my face. Not for this. Not for someone, some _thing_ so important.  I was just exhausted enough, confused and sick enough to do something so much more than a bit not good.

 

Only my brother could make the act of sitting down and texting someone sound disapproving.  His small, discreet cough was fooling no one.  Git. Still, it kept me on my side of the room instead of blubbing at John’s feet like an utter idiot.

 

“Someone tried to blow up Mrs. Hudson’s flat.”  John’s voice, once he finally spoke sent a shiver up my spine. It wasn’t his normal speaking voice, but a lower, much more tense sound that made no bones about how fragile his emotional state was. Even I could deduce that with my laughable understanding of sentiment.  My neck popped when I turned to look at my friend. He did not meet my eyes, looking instead down at the plain folder on his knees with an unwavering gaze.

 

I opened my mouth, speaking before I had thought through the ramifications. “Yes, yes. I am aware.”

 

John’s gaze jerked up to meet mine as he worked out that I had been watching him. I knew that there was no way, _no wa_ y that John could know exactly what I had been doing, but the embarrassment from my act, the remembered rush of sexual gratification I had received from watching him made my own cheeks burn with shame.  

 

“Yes, well, Sherlock did insist on keeping a rather keen eye on you, Dr. Watson.” He paused, deliberately. “Much to our shared relief, in fact. Or your Mrs Hudson would be cleaning your grey matter off her rather alarming wallpaper.”  He crossed his legs, tapping away at his phone. “Continue.”

 

Mycroft’s placid reminder did rather take the wind out of John’s sails. I’m certain that defending me was physically painful, but it didn’t seem as though he’d need to remove the stick jammed up his overlarge arse in order to enjoy the small triumph he’d scored on John.

 

John winced and sighed, pinching the top of his nose. The last time I’d seen it was when his sister had called him, drunk and sobbing. It made my stomach give a funny sort of wiggle which I resolutely ignored.

 

“Two weeks later, I received a post in the mail. Fairly innocuous, nothing too spectacular. A phone. Not fancy. In fact it didn’t even allow texts. I hadn’t even realized that the bloody thing was there until Mrs H heard it ringing and brought me the package.” John shifted in his seat. There was only one number in the call log, and I was... curious enough to press it and see.”

 

Of course he was. The John from right after I jumped had been heartsick with grief. The same bit of intrigue I had offered him, the same hint of danger must have called to him like a siren. My own eyes narrowed as I waited for him to finish.

 

“A recording. It.” John tilted his chin up staring from me to Mycroft with the fearless, brave gaze of a soldier reporting actions unbecoming. “He told me that I had a week to off myself. That Mrs Hudson, Harry and Mike Sanford would be murdered if I did not comply with his wishes.”

 

What?

 

No.

 

That was... _no._

 

My whole body went hot, then cold. My heart, such as it was, stopped in my chest as I stared, wide-eyed at John.

 

John wasn’t quite meeting my gaze, staring at a spot on the wall between both Mycroft and myself.  “He called it a trade. A ... final solution. The people I cared most about in the world would be... safe. And I would be...”

 

“ _John_.”

 

Was that my voice? Even Mycroft looked slightly startled at the unrestrained sentiment that I could not control.

 

I felt it before I saw it.  Months of keeping myself on edge paid off in a reflex that was so ingrained that I had slammed into John’s chair, sending both of us arse over teakettle before it happened:

 

A low _whummmmmp_ that sucked the air out of the room, igniting the oxygen in blue fire as the safehouse exploded around us.

 

Chaos. I heard screams, furious orders barked out with running feet pounding into the lounge where we sat. A bright burst of pain in my head as something struck me. The heat was oppressive, burning my lungs from the inside out.  The last thing I heard was John’s scream of my name as I collapsed on top of him.

 

**-Now-**

 

The voices were muted, almost indistinct as though John were listening from the opposite end of a long corridor.

 

“Absolutely _not._ It’s laughable that you actually think that I will ever be able to--”

 

“Sherlock, I am afraid that this is non-negotiable. You are more than aware of how many siblings I posses. I will simply not allow--”

 

John shifted slightly on his bed, trying to keep himself absolutely still by instinct. The voices got louder, then softer, the two men’s low hisses slowly becoming more and more distinctive.  John’s head felt muzzy, packed in wool. He recognized the feeling of being drugged to his eyeballs and enjoyed the floaty feeling for a moment before Sherlock’s tight hiss made him refocus.

 

“I am certain that I do not need to remind you of what you allowed to happen---”

 

“Yes. A regrettable--”

 

“Regrettable!”

 

John couldn’t help the slight snort at Sherlock’s outrage. It was such a familiar sound.  The voices stopped immediately. There was a footstep, the sound of something scraping on the lino floor as it was shoved unceremoniously out of the way, and John felt Sherlock’s cold fingers wrap themselves around his hand.

 

At least he assumed they were Sherlock’s. Certainly they weren’t Mycroft’s.

 

_Ugh._

 

“John? Can you open your eyes, John?”

 

John wasn’t entirely certain that he could, actually. It seemed as though once he opened his eyes, he would have no choice but to acknowledge the incipient panic that was lurking just out of reach; a wave about to crash onto the ocean. It was much nicer to just let it all wait, to feel Sherlock’s clammy grip against his own. He was so dreadfully tired.

 

John’s eyelids felt much too heavy, like lead weights pinned to his cheeks.

 

***

 

The second time he awoke it was to violent spasms and helpless vomit.

 

The nurse was practically wringing her hands, unable to get close enough to John to assist him.  John was aware of Sherlock’s furious spew of words as he belittled the poor nurse.

 

“--really could you expect from a bare graduate from the local college? Did they actually _teach_ you to read a medical chart? Or are you unable to fathom simple English you utter _useless_ \--” Sherlock clamped down on the rest of what he wanted to say as John lurched, groaning.

 

John’s stomach cramped again. He could tell from the position of Sherlock’s voice that he was behind him, supporting John’s frame as he sicked up into the provided bin. Sick as he was, he could diagnose himself. Allergic reaction, compounded with nerve damage from the electrical current.

 

“He. Is. Allergic. To. Penicillin you utter brainless c--”

 

“ _Sh’lock_.” John slurred, miserable. He managed to squeeze Sherlock’s hand and Sherlock cut off mid-syllable.  He felt a flannel against his lips and was dimly aware that the nurse was running off. He hoped that she would be back with Maxolon to help with the nausea. A sledgehammer to the face. Something. _Fuck_. John swore through gritted teeth.

 

Dimly, John felt Sherlock’s lips brush against the back of his ear, which was quite lovely actually. Sherlock was muttering under his breath, tensing when John’s stomach gave an audible rumble, then relaxing when nothing came from it. John concentrated on not throwing up his kidneys while Sherlock clambered out from behind him, setting the bed so that John could remain propped up.

 

Sherlock crossed the room with two of his gazelle strides, emptying the bin and giving it a quick rinse, turning and reseating himself behind John before the nurse returned with the doctor. Sherlock puffed up like a wet cat when the nurse stepped too close to John.

 

He was much too exhausted to police Sherlock’s protective behaviour. The doctor’s voice droned on for a moment, then there was an injection, and nothing.

 

***

 

The next time John woke, it was to the sound of a crash, a muffled “ _Shit!_ ” and the sound of a door being kicked shut. He sat up in a rush, sucking in a pained breath as his shoulder protested rather stridently with bright bursts of agony fireworking behind his eyelids.

 

Sherlock was standing there, motionless, staring at John with an almost painfully joyous look on his face. Now that John’s head wasn’t so fuzzy, the expression on Sherlock’s face hit him almost viscerally; John could probably count on one hand the number of times Sherlock actually showed honest, true joy of that level. The detective was holding a ratty rucksack, his laptop, and what looked like a bag of groceries. Another bag lay spilled on the floor. Sherlock was drenched, looking somehow smaller without the familiar coat and manky scarf.

 

“John!” Sherlock practically bounded towards him, shoving the groceries in the general direction of the small table before bending over John with a small grin. “Try not to move. Are you thirsty? Stupid! Obvious, of course you’re thirsty. I didn’t trust the water in the taps, bit too much chlorine really, but I can get you something to drink in just a moment.” John noticed that he very carefully did not touch John, although he seemed to have no problems dripping on him.  

 

“Where---?” John’s voice was a breathy, wrecked whisper. “What?” Oh _god_ , his throat felt like he had gargled sandpaper with a chaser of broken glass. He took stock of the signals his body was sending him: muted pain, the slick feel of burnt skin under a bandage on his left thigh, the dull throb of various bruises. His shoulder had been popped back into its socket and did not hurt as much, although he could feel the strain of muscles pulled beyond their endurance, like a piece of elastic that had been stretched out too far.

 

Sherlock’s face shut down. John had seen that blank look countless times, when Sherlock was about to say something that John would not like. It was jarring to see Sherlock shut down his facial expressions like that, even now. Even after everything he knew Sherlock was capable of.   He winced, pressing on his ribs. Moran had-- John jerked, gasping in shock. “Moran!”

 

Sherlock’s large hands curled on John’s shoulders, pressing him back down to the mattress. John was terribly conscious of the feel of Sherlock’s thumbs brushing against his clavicles, rubbing in cold little circles. God, the man’s hands were like ice.  “You’re safe. I’ve made certain that he will not find us. Shhh, now John. I’m afraid if you panic I’ll be more than a bit out of my element, so I am really going to have to insist that you control yourself.”

 

John felt his heartbeat increasing. His body broke out in sweat. Terrified, he cast his gaze around the small room, utterly confused to realize that he was no longer in the hospital. He’d known this of course, but it hit him with an almost unholy shudder that he was somewhere else, some other place where he was not in control. Like that fucking box.

 

“ _Sher_ lock.” He gasped, feeling his chest tighten as a behemoth of a panic attack caused his throat to start to close.  He was here, he was _here_ with Sherlock and Sherlock wouldn’t let... no, no wait. _How_ was he here with Sherlock? The question caused some of the panic to drain away. His breath gasped out again and John became aware that Sherlock was slowly running his hands up and down John’s bare shoulders and arms, trying to calm him down.  It was so utterly bizarre that it allowed John to focus on his lungs again, slowing his panicked breathing to something much less likely to make him hyperventilate.

 

All at once exhausted, John jerked out of Sherlock’s hold and collapsed against the bed, shutting his eyes.  “I would like some water, please.”

 

There was a pause. The mattress shifted. “Yes. Of course.”  Sherlock moved away, and John heard the crumple of the bag. His mind was carefully blank. John concentrated on his breathing.

Ella’s long-away voice floated to him on the remnants of drug-induced memory.

 

He took a deep, shaky breath. Another. Breathe in. Hold it. Count. One. Two. Three.

 

 _Exhale._ Feel it outside of your lungs. One. Two. _Three._

 

“I have questions.”

 

“Naturally.”  There was the sound of a cap being twisted off a bottle of water and John cracked open his eyes, not entirely sure that he wouldn’t be dreaming once he focused.  Sherlock held out the water to him, once again carefully keeping his distance. John took a small sip, and then almost choked when his gaze zeroed on Sherlock, as it always seemed to, like he was the only thing of any importance in any room.

 

John was shocked to see Sherlock pulling off the sodden jumper and toss it haphazardly in the corner, near the bathroom. John blinked, stymied, water bottle held halfway to his mouth.  It struck him then, as insane as it had been with the two of them living under each other’s thumb at Mycroft’s safehouse (or back in Baker Street- god that seemed so far away now), John had never actually seen Sherlock all the way nude. Sherlock undid his zip and button and shimmied out of his jeans and wet pants, kicking them over to the corner. Goosebumps had broken out all over his body. John could still see that his strange, ginger curls were sopping wet, dripping down his naked back. He could no more stop himself from greedily tracking the drops of rainwater with his gaze than breathing.  Whatever oxygen he had managed not to expel froze in his lungs as one particular stubborn droplet clung to the sharp wing of Sherlock’s shoulder blade before falling to its death in the dimple right above Sherlock’s left arse cheek.

 

John made an odd sound when Sherlock bent over to rummage in a small bag on the chest, then quickly hid his fascination by taking another gulp of water.  He couldn’t keep from staring at the dark, damp curl of hair around Sherlock’s prick, unable to look away from the small rash of stubble growing back from where Sherlock had previously shaved. It was such a small detail that John had to smirk to himself. Sherlock _had_ been rather busy after all; definitely too busy to worry about personal grooming.

 

“ _Hmm_.”

 

John jerked his gaze to Sherlock when he heard the small, pointed cough. He felt himself flush, but refused to look away as Sherlock raised his eyebrows in an obvious ‘hey mate, eyes up here’ gesture as he pulled a clean pair of pyjamas from the bag.

 

“You have no doubt deduced that we are no longer in the hospital. And before you make that face, please know that I was not about to let those imbeciles cause you further harm. My idiot brother was under the misconception that we were going to meekly go disappear in another “safe” house- _hah!_ \- and rather than waste time disabusing him of that fantastically ridiculous notion, I simply collected you and... left.” He sniffed, like explaining this was beyond tedious. “Simple to call in some favors, child’s play to have your doctor friend assist with the medication aspect. She even picked it up from the chemist’s.”

 

John blinked. Blinked again. Gave himself a mental slap on the face.

 

“You.” He took a drink of water, watching as Sherlock pulled up his pyjama trousers over his bum, tightening the drawstring with a few jerks. He was shivering as he pulled on a thick sweatshirt, and the sight was so unlike the Sherlock that John knew that John completely forgot what he was going to say.  He hissed when he shifted over on the mattress, forgetting for a moment the symphony of agony his sore body had composed. He carefully set the bottle of water on the bedside table.

 

“John! What are you--?” Sherlock almost tripped in his haste to get to the bedside.

 

“Look, I want to have a piss and brush my teeth. _You_ are going to eat something and then have a lie-down. You look like death and I’m too bloody tired to deal with this shit tonight.” John gasped when he pulled himself to his feet. Fucking utter _hell_ , was he sore. The burn on his thigh rubbed enough that bright sparks of pain lit up his nerves.  John stumbled once as his balance told him in no uncertain terms that he was about to land rather spectacularly on his arse. Sherlock had him in an instant; somehow managing to not press against any of his contusions as he steadied John and helped him regain his equilibrium. Sherlock released him the very second John was steady on his bare feet.

 

John made his careful, slow way to the bathroom and pissed for what felt like an age. Sherlock knocked once as he was washing his hands, and handed him his toothbrush and toothpaste. John was exhausted, using the doorjamb to balance himself, tired enough to forego his teeth for one night. It was only the fact that his mouth felt like a gritty pub floor that had him balancing on the sink as he began to brush.

 

John carefully kept his mind blank as he finished, shut off the light and shuffled slowly back to the mattress. Sherlock had pulled the blackout blinds, but had left the lamp on the far side of the bed on its dimmest setting. John could smell the slightly burnt smell of toast in the air and smiled to think of Sherlock making the least labour-intensive meal he could possibly make. John slid back onto the mattress with a grateful sigh, staring up at the ceiling as Sherlock finished his own nightly routine.  With a flick he turned off the lamp, knowing that Sherlock’s night vision was better than some people’s day vision. It was peaceful, listening to Sherlock, seeing the shadow of his movement from the light spilling out from under the door.

 

John drifted for a moment, sighing.

 

With a jolt, John realized exactly why it was that Sherlock was being so careful not to touch him. John’s eyes snapped open in the darkness. He saw it all again in glorious Technicolor in the way that shameful memories always seemed to creep back in that moment right before sleep.

 

Before Moran had... taken him, he and Sherlock had fought. Horribly. Partially from being cooped up together with very little to do, partially from John finding out about the drugs. And the... the other thing. John had been so furious, so utterly insane with rage that he had not bothered to check his words, bitter resentment spewing from his mouth with no filter.

 

John had called him weak. Pathetic.

 

Sherlock had actually flinched, each insult hitting him like a slap.

 

Sherlock’s face had crumpled for a moment, and like a predator going in for the kill, John had hissed his final, jeering words, throwing Sherlock’s hand from his wrist so violently that Sherlock had stumbled, shocked. “Don’t you touch me, Sherlock. Just. Don’t. Don’t fucking touch me, you twisted little _fuck_.”

 

Then they were ambushed. Kidnapped by Moran. Yet with everything that had happened, Sherlock had not forgotten, and had done his absolute best to comply with John’s directive.

 

God, he felt sick.

 

He heard the toilet flush and the sound of running water. John waited until the snap of the light before he spoke.

 

“Don’t even think about staying up all bloody night.” John felt the guilt swim in his stomach as he spoke, keeping his voice low. “Please, Sherlock. Lie down.”

 

John heard Sherlock’s shocked breath and waited. What did the idiot think he was going to do, sleep in a chair? Not bloody likely. It wasn’t like they hadn’t shared a bed before. John bit his lip, remembering how their limbs had tangled together on the small bed. As furious as he had been, John hadn’t let Sherlock sleep in a chair before , either.

 

“I probably won’t sleep.”

 

John had his own doubts about that, but was willing to keep them behind his teeth for now. He stayed silent, waiting.

 

The sound of the sheets being pulled back made John smile in the darkness, relieved. He felt the mattress dip under Sherlock’s weight and he carefully allowed himself to relax. It was almost painfully awkward in the dark room as they both listened to the other breathe. Finally, John couldn’t take it anymore and reached out blindly, his hand brushing Sherlock’s arm before he slid his fingers down to cover Sherlock’s.

 

Sherlock’s gasp was as loud as a gunshot, and made John’s gut clench with guilt. John squeezed Sherlock’s hand, and Sherlock squeezed back, almost too tightly for a moment before he made himself relax.

 

They held hands, connected in the too-dark room until much-needed sleep took them both.

 

***

 _The sound was terrible.  A hideously wet, unspeakably_ wrong _sound of a too-ripe fruit splatting against a hard surface amplified into agony plus heartbreak._

 

_He finally made it to the familiar, broken shape on the cold, damp concrete, collapsing next to Sherlock as though John were a puppet whose strings had been cut. He could see the blood staining the pavement from his crushed skull. It was still warm as he knelt in it, staring at the pale glimpse of Sherlock’s face._

 

_Someone was screaming as though they were being murdered, their voice cracking from the weight of their pain. If hopelessness had a sound, it would be this serrated, shredded scream._

 

 _John reached out a shaking hand to Sherlock’s cheek, turning his face so that John could stare down at him. He had to. Had to check because no, this wasn’t Sherlock it couldn’t be real please god fucking_ no _no_ no _\----_

 

 _Sherlock’s face_ rippled _, changing from Sherlock’s familiar angular features to something else, melting and reforming like so much wax until Moriarty leered up at him, pursing his lips in a kiss as John scrambled back, slipping in the blood. There was so much, too much blood, no not Sherlock please--_

 

_“No!”_

 

_“John....” Moriarty’s voice changed, slid into the distorted, mechanical voice that Moran used, and John was back there on the table, feeling his shoulder separate and oh. Oh, it hurt so much, so very badly but he couldn’t move as Moriarty licked his lips then slid back to Sherlock cold grin, to Moran's dark intensity as he pulled every sound of pain from John’s throat and back to Sherlock, slowly pushing himself up and wiping the bits of bone smearing the blood no too much. It was so much bl---_

 

_“JOHN!”_

 

“Sherlock! No! _NO_!”

 

Pain hit John like a punch, causing his body to arch against the mattress. His shoulder, his leg, his stomach all burned. John felt like he was on fire with the pain.  He came awake at once with a gasp, aware that he had been sobbing in his sleep. Sherlock was pressed against him, desperately trying to help, his shaking hands brushing from John’s shoulders, to his cheeks.  Sherlock must have turned on the lamp, because all at once John realized that he could see, that he wasn’t lost in the darkness, wasn’t alone.  John gasped, pressing his forehead into Sherlock’s as he tried to remember what it felt like to breathe normally.

 

Sherlock’s eyes were wide with shock, staring at him with such guilt that John pressed his lips to Sherlock’s with a desperate need, just to make it go away. Sherlock made a small, hurt sound as John kissed him, the taste of salt and mint mingling together with the taste of Sherlock before _melting_ against him, kissing John like he couldn’t quite keep himself from stopping.

 

John gripped one of Sherlock’s bony shoulders, his other hand clenching in the curls at Sherlock’s neck. It was quickly apparent that Sherlock had no idea what he was doing, too much saliva and tongue in the frantic kiss, their noses bumping together twice before John took over. He jerked once at Sherlock’s hair, moving his head where he needed it, licking into Sherlock’s mouth. Sherlock shuddered against him, relaxing further into John’s body from where he half-lay in a sprawl over him, before jerking back so abruptly that John was left gasping, blinking up at Sherlock in shock.

 

“No! This is... you’re not...” Sherlock trailed off, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, looking both terribly hopeful and agonizingly guilty at the same time.

 

_Oh._

 

Idiot.

 

“You idiot.”  Sherlock actually blinked at John’s words, offended. “How someone so utterly brilliant can...” John trailed off, carefully reaching out to cup Sherlock’s cheek. Sherlock became very still, as though he were afraid that John would stop if he moved.

 

“But. You were dreaming and...”

 

“--And I need you. Look at me, Sherlock. Do you--”John faltered, overwhelmed for a moment. “Do you want me?”

 

John watched as Sherlock’s eyes slowly drifted shut as he nodded. John tightened his fingers and Sherlock met him halfway, their lips meeting in a chaste kiss. He couldn’t help the small kiss on the tiny plaster on Sherlock’s cheekbone, the mark that John had put there in his blind panic. He pulled back, kissing Sherlock’s trembling lips again.  When John traced the seam of Sherlock’s lips with the tip of his tongue, Sherlock collapsed forward for just an instant, stopping just before he would have aggravated John’s injuries.

 

John slid his hand down Sherlock’s back, kissing him harder as Sherlock shivered at the way his fingernails scratched lightly down Sherlock’s spine, before slipping into the loose pyjama trousers and cupping the warm heat of Sherlock’s arse.

 

“ _Oh_.”

 

Sherlock’s moan rumbled up from his chest and John scraped at Sherlock’s jaw with his teeth, searching out more of the helpless little sounds. God, he wanted this. The flavour of Sherlock’s skin was addictive and John couldn’t keep from Sherlock’s mouth, kissing him deeply, desperate for more.

 

It was John’s turn to moan when Sherlock tentatively splayed his hand over John’s heartbeat, over the cotton of his t-shirt. John bit and Sherlock moaned again, low in his throat, losing anything resembling tentativeness as he moved his hand from John’s chest to cup his cock, hard and throbbing, trapped in his pants. John couldn’t help the way his hips bucked, or the gasp of “Sherlock” that fell from his lips.

 

Sherlock’s grip tightened for a moment before tracing the shaft with his thumb and first finger, exploring its shape behind the quickly-dampening fabric. Sherlock pulled away from the kiss for a second to brush his lips over John’s face and John couldn’t help the shiver that wracked his body when he realized that Sherlock was licking up his tears. “I have to touch you-please-can-I?” Sherlock’s whisper was loud in the quiet room, the words falling over themselves in his haste to get them out.

 

John just lifted his hips in answer, pressing his cock into the curl of Sherlock’s hand. He pulled Sherlock’s arse to him, grinding his unhurt thigh against Sherlock’s prick. John saw Sherlock’s mouth drop open in delighted shock at the friction before he was pawing at Sherlock’s pyjamas, clumsy and lust-stupid. It only took a moment for John to wrap his hands around both of their cocks, rubbing them together in a desperate rhythm: the wet swipe of his thumb, the press against the vein on the underside, the slide of foreskin, rubbing together. Sherlock shuddered once before propping himself up on his hands, jerking his gaze from their cocks to John’s face before shutting his eyes with a low groan.

 

John wanted to watch Sherlock fall apart over him, and he didn’t look too far from it, biting his lip and shaking as he thrust into John’s hands. God his shoulder was fucking throbbing in agony, but he couldn’t stop, couldn’t drag his gaze away from Sherlock’s stunned face as his mouth dropped open in an almost perfect O, his eyes fluttering open and piercing John with their blue-green gaze. John felt the first pulse of thick come and jerked his hand faster, tightening slightly as Sherlock shuddered and moaned above him, eyes locked on John’s.

 

From one second to the next John felt the burst of heat before he was coming all over the both of them, thrusting helplessly up into his own grip.

 

Sherlock seemed frozen above him, as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do. John couldn’t help his smile as Sherlock ducked his head, brushing his lips over John’s. John arched his neck to kiss him back, wiping his hand against his t-shirt before cupping the back of Sherlock’s head, tangling his fingers in the curls, riding the endorphins.

 

“All right then?”

 

Sherlock just nodded, pulling away for a moment to strip himself of his pyjamas, hands gentle as he helped John take off his shirt and pants, then curling up against John’s side, all without speaking. John wasn’t too worried about Sherlock’s silence. Sherlock always took a little time to process new data.

 

John wanted to make a joke about managing to shut the great idiot up at last, but was too busy pushing his fingers into Sherlock’s, hair, petting him as their heartbeats slowed.  Sherlock made a completely contented murmur of sound, shifting just slightly further into John’s body. John was almost asleep before he heard it, the barest whisper of the three little words mouthed against his unhurt shoulder.

 

John’s eyes popped open in the darkness and even as shattered as he was, it was a long time before he could go back to sleep.

  
  


TBC!!

 

**Two chapters left. Thanks for sticking with me!**

  
  



	6. Chapter 6

Thank you to yeahyeahyep, thatworldinverted and jlm121 for all of the everythings. Long chapter is long.

 

**-Before-**

 

“Your brother is an utter twat.”

 

I snorted, glad that my face was turned away from John on the small bed. The feeling of elation was like a hit of cocaine, electrifying every single one of my nerves. I had a tremendously difficult time keeping my body from reacting.

 

John had not spoken to me in four days and twelve hours, almost to the second. Six-thousand eighty minutes. Three-hundred, eighty-eight thousand, eight-hundred seconds.

 

I closed my eyes, biting my lip.

 

“Obvious.”

 

It was John’s turn to snort.

I attempted to ignore the sudden surge of dopamine that swirled around my bloodstream at John’s small sound of amusement. I was utterly unsuccessful. Weak starlight shone onto the bottom half of John’s strong chin, leaving most of his face in shadow. John deigning to acknowledge me after so long was like the first drag on a cigarette after a week of abstaining- an utter shock to the system.

There was only one window in the small room. The small flat was clearly a converted loft space that had seen better times.  It was a small step up from a bedsit in that there was a tiny toilet and microscopic shower behind a Japanese screen in the corner, but my bastard of an elder brother had not exactly gone out of his way to spare the Commonwealth’s taxpayers the expense of providing another safe house for John and myself.  There were exactly two steps from my side of the bed -and wasn’t that curious; the fact that I had an actual _side_ when John and I had never shared a bed before; a small slice of domesticity that was almost painfully intimate after so many months of only seeing John through a computer screen-- and the loo.

Two hotplates, a sink, and a tiny fridge exemplified the extent of the kitchen, and that was a mere four paces from the edge of John’s side of the bed.  There was a small table, but for some reason Mycroft had specified that there were no chairs.  There was no room for them anyway. As it was, John had an uncomfortable squeeze from the corner of our bed and the corner of the small table if he wished to go out to the door.

Mycroft had refused to allow either of us the freedom to leave the tiny little flat. He had seen that there were some amenities, such as a change of clothes for the both of us. We had two mugs, some silverware, and two plates. There was one kettle (imagining John’s fury at being denied tea had been rather amusing) and plenty of sugar and milk for tea.

Curiously though, food was delivered regularly.

John, after waking up, had stormed to the door, only to be deterred by several of my brother’s minions. They had standing orders to subdue either John or myself should either one of us leave the flat for any reason. I had seen agent Moss twice. Once with a gargantuan with whom I had no wish to tangle. The others were hardly worth mentioning. It didn’t matter. As I had no desire to leave John’s presence, their presence was a non-issue for me.  John however, had reacted predictably.

The first day, John’s belligerence was expected. He was furious with me. John refused to speak though, and I found my desire to provoke a conversation that would no doubt be infused with untoward levels of sentiment to be less than rampant. John had tended to the wound on my forehead with fingers that barely brushed against my skin, yet for all that were almost trembling with suppressed rage.

He refused to look me in the face.

To my absolute and complete shock, I found that I could not delete the … uncomfortable reaction from seeing John this way, and spent rather a lot of time wallowing on my side of the bed, pathetically trying not to make too much noise.

The third day I did everything in my rather extensive repertoire to annoy John into acknowledging my presence.  When I attempted to provoke him into hitting me (most people wanted to hit me after all; one could only assume that it was cathartic in some way), John’s eyes had flashed with something so dark that I closed my mouth up mid-syllable, almost biting my tongue in my haste to cease speaking _immediately_.

He didn’t make food for me. Nor would he make tea. Any attempts to make him food were ignored, to the extent that John would actually _dump out the perfectly good tea_ before making himself his own cuppa.

It was infuriating.

This morning, I had attempted to push John into speaking by making my own frustration with this intolerable situation audible. My own anger brought my damnable brother into the mix. He didn’t deign to speak, but the look on his face _– so childish, Sherlock, really-_ had me biting back my own vitriol and assuming my natural thinking pose, taking both of the pillows so that my head would be propped up for the most efficient amount of blood flow to my brain.

John had simply refused to come to bed until I gave him back a pillow. All in all it was an overwhelmingly unsuccessful endeavour.

Most troublingly, was that now I had found  that I had a viable excuse to watch John all that I wanted, I had no desire to do so. I found that I wished to question Irene on the motives behind my recent sexual proclivities.

I had no outlet to research. Mycroft had refused to give me my laptop. The rather ratty knapsack had been found and my cell phone (the one glimpse John had of the cracked screen had caused a look had to cross his face that had actually made something in my oesophagus hurt, before John had about-faced immediately and crossed to the loo- taking the only privacy that this safe “house” afforded either one of us) had also been confiscated by our jailers.

It wasn’t like I could ask John. I could well imagine how _that_ conversation would go.

My Mind Palace had been surprisingly unhelpful. I understood that fetishizing voyeurism was frowned upon in most sexual constructs. Irene had seemed rather blasé on the subject, at complete odds with my brother’s obvious disapproval. The idea of ever seeing anyone other John was utterly repugnant. Yet, without his permission (true, he had given up on keeping Mycroft’s monitoring equipment out of the flat during our first month as flatmates), but not having John’s _explicit_ permission for what I wished to do, my actions were at best somewhat alarmingly creepy, and at worst … illegal.

I was not accustomed to such an overwhelming feeling of guilt. Well, that was not entirely true. Rather, John was the only person for whom I would ever acknowledge any sentiment such as guilt. My brother had once told me that caring was not an advantage, and now more than ever did his words bring home how very right he was.

Not that I would ever tell him that. Git.

I had barely registered that John had climbed into the bed beside me, carefully lying so that no part of his body touched mine before he spoke, the insult to my brother after so many hours of deafening silence bringing a delighted grin to my face.

John shifted slightly. I could see in the dim amount of light that he was lying with his hands fisted loosely over his stomach.

Feeling greatly daring, I shifted so that my shoulder brushed John’s arm.  His exhale was loud and shaky and caused things low in my body to tighten.

“I’m sorry. I am so very sorry, John.” I bit my lip in the dark. Had I been in less control of my transport, I would have winced at the utterly pathetic way I blurted my apology.

The silence was painfully loud. There was very little street noise from our attic flat, and since we had no neighbours, every inhale and exhale sounded like the crash of a symphony. “You’re sorry.” John repeated my words with no verbal inflection to the syllables.  My throat went strangely tight. I found that I had the simultaneous urge to confess every transgression since I had set my mad plan into motion and to bite my tongue to keep myself from speaking.

I nodded, then rolled my eyes in the dark at my own stupidity. “Yes.”

John made a soft sound, something between a grunt and a snort. “Well. How nice for you, Sherlock.”

The tightness in my throat increased, panic lighting up my synapses as John moved off of the bed.  My hand whipped out and closed around his bicep before I quite realized what I was doing.

“I’m just going for a shower. Getting a bit wiffy.” John’s voice had finally lost that strange, furious flatness. He almost sounded... fond. Still, it took two tries before I could make my fingers unclench from his body. My hand fell onto the mattress like some dead thing, and I frantically attempted to order my thoughts, deleting and rearranging explanations and apologies with some semblance of coherence.  I could not marshal my thoughts into what I _could_ say, what I _wanted_ to say, and what John needed to hear without losing the tentative peace. I knew that I could do it. It was simply a matter of confessing some of my misdeeds with enough truth to them so that John would feel predictably protective. His own sentiment would do the rest.

With the proper formula of truth and manipulation, John would forgive me before breakfast.

The hiss and clank of the pipes barely registered, but the short yip of surprise from the frigid water caused me to smirk.  I turned my head without thinking, only to freeze completely.

The moonlight had shifted, slanting in through the small window and across the top of the bed. John had slung his towel over the small Japanese screen, and it had moved just enough that I could see a glimpse of John’s naked body as he showered.

My air left my lungs with a feeling not unlike a punch to the diaphragm. I heard myself make a strangled, panicked sound.

“Was there something?”

Oh _God._ It did not matter that I could only see a small slice of John’s back, the curve of one buttock. I had seen the rest of his body, and my mind had no problems whatsoever filling in any blanks.  Panic and arousal caused me to screw my eyes shut, biting the inside of my cheek to keep the whimper in my throat where it belonged.

I only had to look. John wasn’t fussed about privacy; he’d been a soldier for years before I had met him. Public showers were common.

It was very unlikely that I was the first man to catch a glimpse of John naked in the sh---

My eyes popped open, then narrowed. I could feel the pull of wanting to look, but forced myself to sit up and turn away from the sounds of water sluicing down on John’s shoulders, his spine, down to his---

Oh, _Christ._

“Sherlock?”

I carefully rolled over to John’s side of the bed, standing and searching at the very bottom for my trainers, flung haphazardly into my rucksack once I deduced that I would be going nowhere for a very long time.

“Oh fine.” I cleared my throat, forcing my voice into some nonchalance. “Just yawning.”

Normally the small lie would not have bothered me.  Now though, it grated on my already raw nerves.

I had been holding the small pack of fags in reserve to really ensure that John lost his temper with me, but right now I just needed a bloody cigarette. The window went up with a surprisingly silent sound, and I was out and balanced on the ledge before I had thought about it, the wind from the cool evening whipping my hair into a fury. I bit down on the small pack, unable to take my hands from the top ledge.  As I had deduced, there was a small slope to the roof, and it took very little to swing myself up and over, sitting on the flattish surface with my forearms resting on my knees. There was not much room. Had I attempted to stretch the length of my body, either my neck or my knees would dangle off the slope of the roof.

I had just taken a deep drag before I heard a muffled shout from our room.

_Shit._

“Sherlock!”

Oh bugger. “Yes, John.” I didn’t need to force myself into meekness. I inhaled shakily, and indeed seconds later, John’s hands appeared on the same ledge. I shifted my arse over, forcing my gaze to the tarred surface of the roof.

“You... you...” John was almost incoherent with rage. He was much less graceful than myself, plodding onto my leg and scrambling up onto the roof’s surface with a muffled curse.

I chanced a glance up at him and immediately forced my gaze back down. Little droplets of water still decorated his neck, chest, and shoulders. The moonlight fairly glinted on the proof that John hadn’t bothered to dry off when he discovered that I wasn’t in the room, throwing on his trackies and scrambling out after me.

“It.”  I stopped, cleared my throat. Forced myself to inhale, tremendously grateful that John had no talents at observation, for surely the way my hand shook screamed at my inner turmoil. I tried again, casting about desperately for something to say. “It occurs to me that, given recent events, fleeing to the roof was not, perhaps, my most well-thought out idea.”

“No shit, Sherlock. You-- you... complete fucking _idiot_.” John’s hand gripped my upper thigh. He quite possibly had no inkling of how torturous his grip was, although if he moved even the slightest bit to the left he would have a rather rude shock. It was humiliating that I had no control over my own body. My transport had failed me; no, my _control_ over my transport had failed me.  I did not know if it was John, or the unexpected glimpse of him during such a private moment, or my own reaction and imagination that caused me to harden so abruptly, but I was finding it hard to think with the blood that should be in my brain so quickly diverted. I could feel the heat from John’s body, and it was absolutely _agonizing_ to have him so close to me.

Slowly, John released his panicked grip on my upper thigh. I smoked in silence, enjoying both the nicotine rush and the heady rush of norepinephrine and testosterone wreaking havoc with my system.

John sighed and stretched slightly on the roof, looking up at the sky.

“Where are we, do you suppose?”

I had no idea. A city, obviously, but not one that I readily recognized. My mind was in such a whirl that we could have been sitting on the roof of Mrs. Hudson’s building and I wouldn’t have noticed. The small, intense moment when John first saw me in Mycroft’s guest bedroom wouldn’t leave the foreroom of my Mind Palace. The heat from his body, the sharp smell of sandalwood from the shampoo he had just used gave the quiet night a strange intensity that I was not sure if I wanted to break.

A confession? An apology? An accusation?

I did not know.

“Sherlock?”

I almost jumped at the sound of my name. “I am unsure. I have not been able to hear any colloquialisms of the native speakers. Mycroft’s minions have kept the flat utterly bare of even a hint of where we are. We could be anywhere. Minsk. Middlesex. Mars.”

“Mars?”

If this had been anyone else, I would have mocked them ceaselessly for the pathetically obvious way I had included the planet’s name, purely to remind John of how much he had teased me about not knowing trivial planetary information. I cast a quick glance down at the street. We were only about four storeys up, which did not account for the small, dizzy spurt of breathlessness in my chest after glimpsing the small grin on John’s face. My pulse increased at the tiny acknowledgement that I had indeed amused John, if only for a minute.

“Yes, Mars.” I waved my hand around vaguely at the starlit sky.

John shifted slightly, closer to me on the small space. I tried not to watch the small trickles of water from his hair as they played over his skin and failed completely.

The silence stretched.  It didn’t take someone with my brilliance to deduce that John was still upset with me. Still, he was talking, albeit haltingly, and I had made him smile. He hadn’t shouted at me _too_ much, and the nicotine was a godsend, soothing my shattered nerves.

Neither of us was surprised when one of the minions popped his head out of the window. He looked vaguely familiar. He had been one of the agents to pick me up at the airport.  

“You shouldn’t be up here. Snipers, you know. Best get back to where you’re all nice and safe, Mr. Holmes. Captain.”

I blinked then huffed out an impatient breath. Snipers. Ri _diculous_. Mycroft would have cleared the area in every direction.

John’s shoulders straightened at the title and he nodded. “It’s Doctor, actually. Haven’t been a Captain in a while now.”

The agent said something innocuously boring and popped back into the flat. I was too distracted by John’s calloused fingers on my shoulder. I gasped and dropped the cigarette. My reflexes were dormant as I tried to catch it, hissing when it burnt my thigh before falling onto the roof. Humiliating. I attempted to grab it before it pitched over the roof and managed to burn my finger in the process.

John was laughing again, hard enough that his grip tightened on my shoulder so that he could keep his balance. “Go.” He managed to wheeze and feeling my face burning, I was more than pleased to pop back down off the roof and in through the loft window.

The nameless drone ignored me, unpacking something from the shops and setting it up on the table. I had to flop down onto my spot onto the mattress before John could swing in, and I would be lying if I didn’t say that I stared at him, at the strength in his arms, muscles bulging just enough as he swung his weight in through the small window.  He was much more graceful than I. I do not know why that surprised me.

I frowned at the burn on my hand, and then poked at it. Which was fairly stupid, but it did cause John to huff in exasperation and sit down beside me on the mattress. I jerked my hand from his touch when John’s fingers closed around mine, flustered.

“Don’t be such a baby. Give it here.” John’s fingers grabbed my wrist and he tilted my hand in the poor light so that he could look at it.

“Oi!”

We both looked at the agent. I’m quite certain the look on my face was less than friendly, and I quickly schooled my features into some semblance of blankness before John could see.  I didn’t miss the wink the agent sent at John, nor the way he tossed the first aid kit at us, causing John to let go of me in order to catch it.  I certainly didn’t miss the bright smile on John’s face.

I did _not_ care for the way John smiled his thanks, a genuine, full-on smile at someone else.

“It _hurts_.” John’s attention was back on me, where it belonged.  I hissed in pain (only a little embellished- any more and John would know) and some of the light left John’s face as he opened the kit for some burn cream.  I suppose that someone else might feel guilt at the small manipulation, but if I could have glared over John’s head without him seeing me, I would have done. John’s smiles were _mine_. It was hard not to gloat when the door shut, leaving the two of us alone once again.

I watched John stroke the burn cream over the small blister and only huffed a little at the picture of the stylized crown on the plaster.

“Disney Princesses?”

“Mycroft believes himself to be amusing.”  For some reason this caused John to snort in laughter. We were so close that I felt the puff of air against my cheek, and I could not help the way my gaze darted up to John’s. Held.

My gaze flicked down to John’s lips, then jumped guiltily back up to John’s eyes. My heart rate jumped crazily when I saw the darkness there. I moved a breath closer, pulled towards John’s gravity like the moon to the Earth. Or the Earth to the moon. Whatever. Deleted as unimportant. John’s grip became almost painful on my wrist, and still he didn’t move towards me.

Perhaps I was not being obvious enough. John’s intelligence was several steps above the average idiot’s, but he could still be terrifically stupid at times. My heart was beating so loudly in my chest I was almost shocked that John could not hear it. I moved a fraction of an inch forward. Brushed my lips against John’s, my eyes closing in shock as data flooded my brain. He was wonderfully warm. Hair still slightly damp from his shower. Lips chapped, strong. In a remembered flash of sensation I saw John with his hand on the nameless stranger’s wrist, pressing him tightly to the wall as he--

John jerked away from me, dropping my wrist as though burned.

There was a beat of silence where my eyes popped open in shock. No. He wasn’t meant to move _away_ , he was--

“No. _No_ , Sherlock.”

Oh.

“Of course.”  Even with my stellar acting skills, I was amazed that my voice was so even, given the waves of humiliation and rejection that were rolling through me. I settled back on the bed, assuming my most common thinking position. Laughable, really.  I couldn’t think. My mind was curiously blank from cognizant thought, but John did not know this. Long habit of being lost in my Mind Palace set a precedent for me to ignore John’s agitated pacing.

“Sherlock- I didn't mean...” John trailed off. I could picture him behind my closed eyelids, running a frustrated hand through his hair as he attempted to gather his thoughts. “Oh, bugger. Sherlock? _Sherlock_?”

A child could have been able to deduce the John was going to reach out to me, and I was able to keep my body relaxed, continuing to ignore him, while simultaneously being almost painfully aware of every breath that he took.

John cursed under his breath. I heard him walk the few steps to the light switch and turn it off. Having nowhere else to go, John crawled under the blankets next to me.

Rejection wasn’t new. Being rejected by someone who mattered this much, was. Victor had been simple. I had been curious about sex, and Victor had been terribly shy. I had not formed the emotional attachment that I had with John. Victor and I had manually stimulated one another, and I had been curious enough to attempt fellatio, but had never seen much point in kissing. Victor had tried, and I had ducked away, appalled, the names of each bacteria found in the human mouth rattling from my mouth before I could stop myself.  

Victor had distanced himself not long after.

“Sherlock?” A tentative hand on my shoulder.

Delete. I could only delete this. John did not want me in that way. Why would he? It was stupid, _stupid_ to have tried. To have attempted to.

“You’re not fooling me, you know.” The mattress dipped. “Open your eyes and look at me, Sherlock.”

I refused, actually tightening my lids like a child, hoping the monsters under the bed weren’t real.

“You cannot _do_ that, Sherlock. It’s dishonest. Yes, I am furious at you. I will likely be furious at you for a long time. You throwing a wobbler to get me to react to you didn’t work, and neither will kissing me.”

John flopped back onto the mattress and I opened my eyes in the darkness, shocked. John thought that I--

“I think that I put some of it together. You jum--” John cut off speaking with a strangled noise. I was still too frozen to move. “Your fall, the bicyclist. Molly is a terrible actress, by the way. At first I thought she was avoiding me because of awkwardness, but I know what guilt looks like, Sherlock. I’m not an idiot.”

No. Yes, he was. But not about that. John knew people the way I could deduce the minutiae of their sad, pathetic lives. His instant empathy, even when he chose not to act on it had fascinated me from the beginning.

“So I asked myself, what on earth would Molly Hooper have to feel guilty about? So I did some investigating on my own. I’m afraid poor Mike thought me more than a bit mad when I insisted on seeing your body. Molly said that it had already been released to Mycroft. Odd. No inquest. No hearing. You were thought to have killed yourself, Sherlock. Why was there no hearing? No _record_ of a hearing? How had the body been released to the family so quickly? Certainly, it was possible that Mycroft had been pulling strings like the puppet master he is, but.”

John stopped abruptly, and I found myself listening acutely, almost straining to hear his soft voice as he spoke in the darkness.

“The bicyclist. The fact that Moriarty had ate his gun. Molly. I was convinced, Sherlock. _Convinced_ that you had done it- that you had pulled off a magic trick. But, you didn’t return. I... begged you to come back. You are brilliant, and if anyone could do it, you could.”

Hearing John calling me brilliant had the same effect as always. Some of the rolling chasm of humiliation subsided, allowing for the small spurt of warmth, squirming hopefully in my chest.

John sighed. “But you didn’t. You didn’t come back.”

The silence was appallingly loud, echoing through my brain as though I had shouted in an empty, cavernous room.  

“I.” I shut my mouth with a click of teeth. Did I confess that I hadn’t been trying to kiss him out of his fury? Then he’d know that I... that I wanted... no. I wouldn’t risk it.

John snorted. “You giant faker. I knew it.”

“I am... sorry, John.”  Surely an apology wouldn't go amiss.  To my shock, John’s fingers wrapped around my wrist again, careful of my burnt finger.  For the first time since our incarceration, it was ... nice to feel him next to me. I could not put a name to the emotion he was giving off, but it wasn’t anger, or fury, and that was tremendously pleasant.  

I matched my breathing to John’s in the darkness, still unsure of what to say. What to tell him? John had accused me of being dishonest, and I found that I was disgusted with myself. I listened as John fell asleep, listened to his deep, even breathing. His grip around my wrist loosened as he slept, and I bit my lip, easing out of the bed. I stripped and dressed into my pyjama trousers, easing myself back into the bed under the covers. Normally, I could keep myself awake for hours by concentrating my thinking.  Now though, I welcomed the oblivion of sleep, knowing that for a short while at least I wouldn’t have to feel such guilt and disgust with myself.

Wakefulness came slowly.

I was warm. Almost too warm. I heard the heartbeat under my ear increase before John eased slowly away.  My sleepy mind snapped to completely awake in an instant when I registered that I was hard, throbbing against John’s thigh, having wrapped myself around him in my sleep.

Oh _god._ Images flew behind my eyes, images of John’s sadness, of John touching himself, of John’s buttocks as he thrust, his neck bent as though lost in the carnality of what he was doing. I was horribly aware that I had left a damp spot against my pyjama trousers, and that they would hide nothing- not that there was anything to hide; not even John could miss this.  John moved again from under me, and between one breath and another I had run from the warm cocoon of blankets, hiding behind the screen. Hiding from John.  

I refused to touch myself with John knowing, just steps away. The water was frigid and I welcomed it, shivering as my body forgot John’s heat. I could only hide so long without risking hypothermia. John had left my clothes on the screen and I dressed as quickly as I could.

John looked up from his tea when I left the bathroom and I couldn’t help the flood of embarrassment that stained my cheeks at the look on his face. Oh this was intolerable.

I tilted up my chin and took a belligerent sip of tea. John laughed outright when I immediately burnt my tongue.

“You know that is perfectly normal.”

It was? Normal? To molest your flatmate’s thigh in his sleep? There was more than one reason I had never aspired for normality.  I took another sip of my tea, refusing to look at John.

“So. Er. I didn’t realize that you...”

“Had a penis? Tremendously unobservant of you, John.”

John choked, wheezing for a moment as he inhaled his tea.

I rolled my eyes. “I do, in fact possess a sexuality.” If he only knew. “I am not a virgin, depending of course on your definition of virginity. I simply choose not to act on my baser instincts is all.” I stole a look up at him from under my eyelashes.

John licked his lips, and I almost dropped my mug of tea.

“Uh. Yes. Of course. I just didn’t think that you... married to your work, you know?”

I thought the fact that I managed to bite back the fact that I had been out of work for quite a while was exceedingly well done of me.  

John rummaged in the bag, clearly looking for a distraction and found a pastry. My stomach gave an obedient gurgle and John’s smile was fond as he looked at me.  We ate in companionable silence, foregoing our meagre supply of plates as we ate over the box.

I was pleasantly full of tea and sweet pastry, John wasn’t ignoring me, and he hadn’t punched me for putting him in two very awkward positions in a very small amount of time. I didn't realize until much, much later that John had waited for just the right moment, manipulating me as much as I ever had manipulated him. The question had been simple enough:

“How did you know to call me?”

And I answered, without thinking of the repercussions of my answer.

“I was watching.”

John pounced on the words, all at once the cold, purposeful man who had killed Jefferson Hope without hesitating; without losing a night of sleep. This was very much Captain John Watson, and I was flummoxed at the change in him.

“Were you?” John’s voice was cold.

I nodded slowly, focused on the way John’s lips tightened. “Yes.”

“Watch me a lot, did you?”

 _Shit._  Panic. I closed my eyes, feeling as though I would vomit. John knew. How could he know? How could he possibly...?

Mycroft.

“I. I did. Yes.”

John’s laugh was grating to my already painfully stretched nerves. “You sick _fuck_.”

I flinched as though he had punched me. He had known. He had known this whole time and said nothing. No wonder he’d been so furious. No wonder he’d stopped my feeble attempt at kissing him. John was disgusted with me, rightfully, _hatefully_ disgusted with me. I had gone so far into a Bit Not Good that there would be no respite; no recovering John’s trust.

“Hours. Mycroft said that you watched me constantly, for hours, Sherlock. Do you know how pathetic that is? You lord above everyone with how brilliant you are- how aloof you are, yeah? But you’re not, Sherlock. Content just to fuck off into the sunset and leave little John Watson, poor, sad...” John’s words were like knives digging into my heart. “Do you think that I’m that weak? That I need minding like some... some child? I. Am. Not. Weak! _You’re_ weak to think---” John broke off mid tirade. He pinched his forehead, looking equally frustrated and appalled at himself. “I know that you don’t understand things the same way that normal people do-” I flinched again but John hardly seemed to notice. “-but surely even you can see how- _God!_ ” John stopped himself from talking, picking up his mug with shaking fingers. The cheap ceramic clinked against his teeth.

I carefully set down my own mug and tried to step away. Before I could, John grabbed my bicep, pulling me forward, off-balance, so that I crashed into his smaller, sturdier body. Dimly I heard the mug hit the floor, exploding like a small bomb. Within one blink and the next, John had crowded me up against the wall near the door. I was too dumb to react, shocked into immobility by the suddenness of his actions.

I almost collapsed when I felt his mouth on my neck, felt his hand on my throat. John kissed me like he wanted to punish, forcing his tongue into my mouth and tasting all of me, and it was good. So very,very good. Perfect.  He kicked my legs apart so that I was even further off-balance, angling his hip so that he was pressing against my rapidly-hardening cock. I moaned, a sound lost in John’s forceful kiss. I started to touch his shoulders, but before my hands had fully settled on his body, John twisted my hands up against the wall, holding them with a grip like iron. For a smaller man, his hands were quite strong.

“You watched me get off with that bloke. You let Mycroft _spy_ on me, then watched me yourself. Did you like it? You did, of course you did. Knowing that I was thinking of you whenever I touched myself, probably loving that I cried over you, dreamed about you.”

Wait- no. That wasn’t...

John’s hand cupped me through my jeans, causing me to cry out in shock and want, mind shuddering to a complete halt.

John’s hand left my prick, up my stomach under my shirt. I knew that he could feel my heart beating, and I twisted in his grip, desperate for his mouth. I bent down to kiss him. I knew that I didn’t have the talent for it that John did-- I almost managed to knock myself out when I didn’t tilt my head enough-- and John’s low laugh did nothing to calm the way I was rocking my hips, wanting his hand back on me again. I was desperate. Needy. _Stupid_ with want of the man in front of me.

John’s hand rose higher, scraping his finger over my nipple and I couldn’t help my gasp of his name.  John pulled back and smirked up at me, then frowned as his fingers moved again. Not over my body this time but the pocket of my shirt.

The pocket.

Oh _no._

John froze completely, staring at the small packet of powder in his hand. He took a step back.

I tried to speak, but couldn’t get words past the blockage in my throat. I watched the emotions flicker across John’s face. Shock. Fury. Disgust. Pain.  Frantically, I pushed forward, trying again to kiss him. It was my turn to grab his wrist.  I didn’t even have time to blink before John had flipped me. I was so off-balance that I landed onto the table, sending it crashing to the floor under my weight.

“You... you disgust me.”  John threw the packet at me. It bounced off my arm onto the floor. I had landed hard enough that it forced the breath from my lungs and I still couldn’t move, immobile in the face of John’s fury. “Don’t you touch me, Sherlock. Just. Don’t. Don’t fucking touch me, you twisted little _fuck_. I’m done with this shit. _Never_ touch me again, Sherlock.”

And John, my careful, tediously protective best friend, jerked his gaze from where I lay sprawled on the ground in shock, forgetting completely why we had been trapped in this miniscule little flat and stormed out of the door, slamming it so hard behind him that the flimsy lock broke.

I had done it. I had finally found the thing that would cause John to leave me.  Not faking my suicide and making him watch. Not confessing to watching John at all hours of the day and night. But the drugs? The drugs that I had purposefully kept on me? The proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back; that was what broke John Watson’s faith in me.

It took a few heartbeats before I could force my body into action, springing up and running down the stairs after him. I hit the street just in time to see the huge man behind John, intent implicit in the way he reached for him.  I had just enough time to cry out a warning before there was a bright burst of agony from the back of my head.

Then nothing.

 

**-Now-**

John had only woken up with Sherlock once before, but this was as different from that time as night was to day. The last time (and had it only been a few days ago? Was that even bloody _possible_?) John had woken up panicked at the thought of Sherlock that close to him. He’d stupidly wanted to cling to his anger, had been disgusted and ... desperately turned on at the thought of Sherlock’s attention on him. Had he really cared about John that much? To watch over him?

Mycroft had obviously felt that John should be aware of that fact- telling him in that plummy voice of his that yes, indeed, his younger brother had a few ... idiosyncrasies with which he felt John should be aware.

 _Idiosyncrasies._ Mycroft was a complete and utter sod.  He had deemed it best that Sherlock wake up in the tiny flat instead of in a hospital, and John had agreed that that would likely keep him safe if Sherlock couldn’t work out where he was. Oh god, he’d been furious. But it wasn’t until he’d been locked in that fucking box; choking on his own snot and tears that John had been able to be honest enough with himself to admit that... god. _Sherlock_.

And now he was here, curled up against John’s body like he was part cat. John tilted his head and saw that the great, lanky idiot was sprawled against and on him, his head tilted awkwardly so that he could share John’s pillow. Sherlock was snoring softly. There was even a tiny bubble of drool on the corner of his mouth that John _refused_ to admit was _ridiculously_ endearing. The ginger curls were weird enough that Sherlock didn’t seem quite like himself, but the cheekbones were the same. John reached out a finger and touched the plaster on Sherlock’s cheek softly, with the barest hint of a touch.

He’d shot Sherlock. Shot _at_ him. He, the crack shot, had thank god- thank _god_ been so out of it that he’d missed his target. Sherlock could have been, _John_ could have...

“Do stop thinking so loudly, John.”

John jerked, then met Sherlock’s raised eyebrow somewhat shamefacedly. He watched as Sherlock then made a horrible, scrunched face and scratched rather frantically at the dried semen on his stomach, looking utterly disgusted.

“Where are we?”

“Later. Ugh, this is. Good Christ, are we _cemented_ together?!” They both winced when Sherlock pulled away. Clearly, last night they had both been too knackered to clean up as thoroughly as John had thought they had.

“Not anymore.”

“Shower. Come.”

John didn’t miss the fact that even as imperious as Sherlock was, he was careful with John’s burn and his shoulder as he poked and prodded and huffed until John was standing under the shower with him, covered more in Sherlock’s long fingers than soap suds.

“Will your burn--” Sherlock turned so that John’s back was under the spray, holding him so that he wouldn’t fall. It felt like utter bliss.

“It’s fine. I’ll have to wash it with saline later, but the bandage should stick through the shower and keep the soap off the wound.”

The erstwhile nurse might have been terrible at reading John’s chart (more likely she’d been distracted by the huge, bat-like, broody man in front of her and had made a very simple mistake) but she had packed and bandaged his burn extremely well, using high-grade gauze and tape so that he was as protected as possible.

Sherlock attempted to keep his touches clinical as he washed John, but John had no such compulsion. Having Sherlock tend to him was tremendously satisfying, and John fully intended to enjoy it while he could.

They were both half-hard by the time the shower ended, trading slow, drugging, lazy kisses whenever the mood struck one of them. Sherlock helped John to sit in the rather plush chair and briskly dried him off, frowning at the bruising around John’s shoulder.

“Looks worse than it is. Some of that discolouration is from my scar.”

Sherlock sniffed, as though affronted that John would need to point this out. John was then utterly astounded when Sherlock leaned forward to kiss the biggest bruise. It was such a sweet gesture that John couldn’t breathe for a moment.

Before he could do anything, Sherlock had sprung up, shaking out his wet hair like a dog, and dressing himself in a t-shirt and jeans.  The room that they were in was much bigger, and much, much more opulent than the microscopic flat that Mycroft had sent them to. John was perfectly content to sit there naked, and wait for Sherlock to fill him in on his plan. Surely Sherlock had a plan. Sherlock always had a plan.

“I am sure that you are wondering how I found you.” Sherlock took a few gazelle strides into the kitchen- a proper kitchen this time, not a mere kitchenette- and began moving things around.

John rested his head on the chair. He hadn’t been, exactly, but it would do for now. He was bloody exhausted, and he felt as though he were several paces behind Sherlock, and quickly losing sight of him.  Well, he often felt this way, but sitting here, naked in a rather fine squashy chair while Sherlock fussed over him, John could deal.

“You might not be aware that Moran sent me a video of you.”

John’s eyes popped open. “Wait. Wait, you were kidnapped! He showed me you passed out on the floor!”

Sherlock froze for a moment, the look of guilt on his face so profound that John ached for him.

“I... was. I... escaped. You told me that....” Sherlock shifted his weight, looking very much like a child that had been caught out doing something naughty.

John held up a finger. Sherlock stopped mid-fidget.  “If this conversation is going where I think it’s going, then I think I’m going to need pants.” It took John two tries to get up, and he could _feel_ Sherlock wanting to help him into his boxers, but he managed, limping slightly as he collapsed back into the chair, settling in and looking expectantly at Sherlock.  “Now. Yes. I’ve told you hundreds of times to escape if you ever had the chance. _Thousands_. You did the right thing.”

“How can you say that? I just left you there!” Sherlock roared, slamming the pan onto the hob in his anger.

“Sherlock. If ever there is a human being capable of finding me when I am lost, you are that person. And that’s exactly what you did, yeah? You _found me_. You couldn’t have done that if you were still kidnapped. Idiot.” John couldn’t resist the insult, noting that Sherlock’s lips twitched a little in answer.  “So you escaped, then what?”

“Moran found me through my phone. I don’t know how long he’d had my phone under surveillance.”

Bullshit.

John could tell Sherlock was lying from all the way over on his side of the room. Sherlock knew exactly when Moran had taken his phone, but was refusing to tell John. No matter. John knew he could get it out of him later. “Hmm.” John made a small agreeing sound, shutting his eyes again as Sherlock carefully didn’t meet his gaze.  It was silent for a minute, then Sherlock started clattering about in the kitchen again. John peeked through his eyelashes, somewhat astounded that Sherlock even knew how to _use_ a hob.

“He had been two steps ahead of me the whole time. The plan to have you--” Sherlock’s voice faltered and cracked. “He knew that I was watching you. Clearly it was not the secret I thought it was.” The small bit of self-deprecation made John snort. “He had been working with Mycroft enough to have a high enough clearance to certain files. He knew that I was alive, but needed to draw me out.”

“And I was bait.”

“And you were bait.” Something crashed and Sherlock cursed under his breath. The smell of butter and onions made John’s mouth water. “Very well-thought out bait. Mycroft believes that Moran had a plan in place to stop you from actually shooting yourself,” Sherlock’s voice wobbled slightly, but he continued, “and from there it was just a matter of monitoring me.  He was on the detail in Mycroft’s house. The bomb was a simple pipe bomb, not remotely up to Moriarty’s standards, but well enough for the job, I suppose."  There was a crack and the hiss of an egg hitting the butter and John wanted to moan.

“So how did you find me?”

“I’m getting to that.” Sherlock sounded petulant at being asked to rush his explanation. John had almost forgotten how moody he got when he was forced to hasten his big reveal. “From there, it was child’s play to figure out where we were. He just had to wait until he was up on rotation. Once he had a place, he could put the kidnapping into motion, and take you from me.”

Sherlock paused and peeked at the bottom of the egg with a rubber spatula. Sherlock’s voice was brittle when he spoke, almost too quietly to hear. “He sent me a video of you. To my phone. My phone was practically the first thing I insisted on having when I showed up on Mycroft’s doorstep, and neither of us thought that it might be compromised. So, unforgivably stupid. The video showed you being...” Sherlock’s voice broke for real this time, and John couldn’t stand it. He was up and limping over to Sherlock as quickly as he could, wrapping his arms around Sherlock from behind. Sherlock stiffened, and John started to step back, forgetting for a moment that Sherlock did not care to be touched, but before he could, Sherlock took a step back so that he was closer to John, pulling his arms tighter around him. It wasn’t sexual, but so very, utterly perfectly what John wanted to do, and what Sherlock _needed_ him to do, that neither one of them moved for a moment.

“Shit.” The mutter made John smile and he let Sherlock go to rescue breakfast.

John took his time seating himself back in the chair. He understood that Sherlock would need a moment to compose himself, and didn’t want to push.

“The video was very graphic of course. You were screaming in one of them, delirious in another. It was obvious that you were drugged. Confused. You kept slurring one thing over and over though. ‘My house’.”

“My house? But I don’t have a house.”

Sherlock favoured him with a look so disgusted that John shut up. It was such a Sherlock thing to do, that it heartened John in a weird way, to know that he hadn’t ruined everything between them last night.  

“Of course you don’t. It took me no time at all to deduce that you weren’t talking about your _house_ , but were slurring ‘ _Mycroft_ ’ and ‘ _warehouse_ ’.”

John sat up so suddenly that his teeth clicked together. Now that Sherlock had said that, he could remember. The weird dream. The familiarity of the building, even though he had only been there once, and even then on the second night that he’d known Sherlock.  Mycroft had played ‘evil nemesis’ in a dilapidated old warehouse, and somehow... Somehow...

“Yes. Moran found out the location. Well, more likely that Moriarty found out the location. This whole scheme _reeked_ of his incompetency.” Sherlock wiped his hands on a towel and turned towards John, pulling the table closer to where he sat so that he could eat.

“Eat.”

John blinked up at Sherlock, not at all certain that he wasn’t in some parallel universe somewhere. John thought, rather wistfully, that this must be what Heaven felt like. Whatever force had Sherlock serving his every whim, making him breakfast was... no. That wasn’t fair. John knew why Sherlock was taking care of him so well. Sherlock had whispered why into John’s sweaty skin just a few hours ago, after all.

But ... now was not the time to deal with that.

The omelette was only a little rubbery, and the jam covered up the burnt spots on the toast rather well. John watched as Sherlock stole John’s toast and nibbled at it, even though he loathed jam, eyes far away.

“Sowuffahn.” Sherlock blinked and raised an eyebrow. John swallowed and tried again. “So now what?”

Sherlock’s fingers twitched. Instead of replying, he crossed back to the kitchen and brought John his tea, settling it down carefully on John’s table before flouncing over to the bed and flopping down on it in his customary sprawl.  His quicksilver gaze landed on John, on John’s bandage, before settling on the ratty knapsack and laptop that he had left by the door last evening. Sherlock stretched out an arm and pulled his phone from the drawer on the nightstand. John stopped mid-chew, noticing that the overdramatic twit popped the battery into its place with enough flair to make seasoned thespians roll their eyes. The jingle of his phone being turned on made the food in John’s mouth taste like dust.

“So now...? We wait.” Sherlock’s smile was shark-like. “I do not anticipate that it will  take all that long.”

 

TBC!

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> .... nope. Still not abandoned. I just write very slowly, and this chapter was redone _several_ times. Thanks for sticking with it!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * * *
> 
> Thank you to yeahyeahyep, thatworldinverted and jlm121 for all of the everythings.
> 
> Also a big thankthanks to FoxyK for the beta. She came into this late but her skills are amazing!
> 
> Also there is plot in this chapter but you might not notice because of all the sex. So that’s something, I guess.

 

 

**-Now-**

 

It was raining again.

 

Sherlock continued clicking away on his laptop, lost in his head.  It had been so long since John has seen him this way that he had to forcibly stop himself from grinning goofily at the way Sherlock had thrown himself into his plan.

 

The plan that John still knew nothing about.

 

Still, things had popped along rather quickly for the past fortnight or so (John had been unconscious a few of those times so he was unsure of the exact number of days.), enough that John was rather enjoying not being tortured or furious or heartbroken. And the familiarity of seeing Sherlock being.... well, _Sherlock_ was a comfort in its own right.

 

He sat in the squashy armchair, tapping his fingers on the armrest, jiggling his leg and staring out into the rain. He couldn’t see exactly where they were.  He had put together that it was a lodge of some sort, the kind that bored Londoners went to when they wanted to experience ‘rustic’ living, but that didn’t tell him much.  John had only peeped out of the heavy curtains once, and Sherlock had been so furious at him that John hadn’t since. The front windows were massive, easily taller than Sherlock. There was some kind of poufy thing on the top (John thought that it was called a valance but he wasn’t entirely certain. His mum used to attack every window in the house with the bloody useless things, but that was the extent of his knowledge) that allowed about a foot at the top of the window to be seen. It was enough to see the rain against the window pane, and plenty for a dim sort of light. But no one could see inside the tall windows.

 

Sherlock had seen that the lodge was stocked with several different amenities. There were books, but no telly. Internet access, but John had no laptop or phone. There was quite an abundance of food, and John’s favourite blend of tea, and John appreciated that.

 

It had been two days since Sherlock had made John breakfast.

 

They had been strangely quiet around each other.  John had been.... well. To tell the truth, there was so much unsaid between the two of them, he didn’t quite know where to start. He couldn’t imagine anything more uncomfortable than discussing one’s feelings with Sherlock Holmes of all people. John snorted under his breath at his own understatement.

 

Sherlock ignored him.

 

John bit at a hangnail, thinking. It was raining outside, and the dull crash of thunder and rhythmic patter of the rain was driving him a little batty.  He’d had plenty of time to think, really. He thought about what he had almost done, and how Sherlock had stopped him. He thought about how they’d been almost tripping over each other in the tiny little safehouse flat, and how much John was enjoying Sherlock’s guilt. Every single apology had sounded like the most beautiful of music.  He wasn’t exactly proud of that, but he could be honest with himself. Watching Sherlock’s awkward apologies had been... nice.

 

And true. John knew that Sherlock would have had compelling reasons to do what he had done, but that didn’t excuse those months of utter devastation that he’d felt, believing that Sherlock was gone.

 

So here were the facts, as John saw them:

 

One- He was stuck here for an indeterminable time, waiting for Sherlock to fill him in on his grand scheme.

 

Two- Neither of them had spoken about the return of Sherlock’s drug habit, nor the sex that had followed John’s rescue.

 

Three- Sherlock had said that he loved John. He had said it and John had not acknowledged it, not trusting that Sherlock wasn’t attempting to manipulate him again.

 

Four- John had said some terrible, hateful things to Sherlock. He had not apologized. Everything had gone pear-shaped after he’d stormed out of the flat like an utter knob. Yet, even with everything that he had said, Sherlock had not rested until he’d found John.

 

John bit his lip. When Mycroft had casually mentioned the fact that Sherlock had been so obsessively watching him, John’s first reaction had most definitely not been anger. Embarrassment, perhaps. Confusion. It had thrown John for six that Sherlock would feel any kind of attachment to him. Certainly, it had crossed a few lines, especially when John figured that Sherlock must have gotten quite an eyeful those few times.  But....  if John didn’t exactly _mind_ some of those lines... if the idea of Sherlock watching him had caused John to harden in his trousers more than once...

 

But it was a moot point, considering that absolutely no watching of any sort had happened since Sherlock started focusing his attention on drawing out Moran. The anger had come later, once John had realized that Sherlock had lied to him, had forced him to watch that beautiful brain leaking out onto the pavement.... and he still didn’t know why. Oh sure, he’d put a few things together. He wasn’t a complete idiot, no matter what Sherlock thought. John frowned and added that to his mental list.

 

Five- Sherlock had orchestrated this whole scheme to fake his death, and John didn’t know why.

 

John froze as an idea- a terrifyingly perfect idea occurred to him. The problem was that John had never done anything like this before. Even with his girlfriends, John’s sex life had been well... Not _boring_ , per se. Unadventurous. He’d only ever brought the one stranger home to his flat after Sherlock left, and while he had been careful - no matter how heartbroken he was, John was too much of a doctor to be unsafe- the sex had been more angry than particularly kinky. John blushed at thinking the word, and shifted a little in his chair.  Three continents of men and women had given him plenty of experience, but not a lot of anything weird. He wanted... well, that was obvious. John wanted Sherlock. He wanted to apologize for some of the terrible things he’d said. He wanted to stop being bored. Orchestrating sex probably wasn’t the wisest way to accomplish all of those things, but they would probably work in a fix.

 

He licked his lips and glanced across the room where Sherlock lay sprawled on the bed, oblivious to anything but the glow of the computer screen.

 

John heaved himself to his feet and made his way to the kitchen for a glass of iced water. He felt a bit like an idiot, but the last time he’d seen it had been... yes. There it was, by the sink.  A rather pricey lotion and not something that John would normally use, but it would do in a pinch.  He walked across the kitchen to get ice, jumping a little as the lights flickered with the storm outside.

 

The frantic tap of keys didn’t pause. John walked back to his chair, setting the glass on the little table and picking up the book.  Sherlock hadn’t given any indication that he was even aware of John walking in front of him, but John wanted to make sure that nothing was screaming what he was about to do. If Sherlock happened to look up, he’d be able to deduce what John was planning from an eyelash on his cheek or something, and there went his surprise. And his apology. _And_ his orgasm.

 

He forced himself to read, shifting so that he was sitting on the lotion. A few casual sips of his water had him feeling quite ridiculous.   Anticipation was making him even hornier, and John finally gave it up as a bad job, setting the book aside on the table and stretching back as though he were planning on a quick kip.  Nothing that he hadn’t done before, nothing that should tip Sherlock off as just not on.

 

John started slowly, in his head, remembering how desperate Sherlock had been to kiss him, the almost punched-out look of shock on his face when John had wrapped his hand around both of their cocks.   _Oh yes_. That was nice. His cock twitched, and John shifted again, slouching down a little in the chair so that his bare feet were planted on the floor. He cupped himself, decades of familiarity with his own prick causing him to catch the sensitive spot under the glans with his curled fingers on the first try. John licked his lips, darting another glance up at Sherlock.

 

He still hadn’t noticed, and was staring blearily down at the muted glow of the laptop screen, fingers flying as he clicked from site to site, mapping out his schemes and plans with careful, acute attention to detail. He had to have been aware of the lightning on some level since he had unplugged his laptop wire from the wall, but he had no other reaction.

 

Still, John figured that he was due a break.

 

John tightened his grip on his dick, shivering a little at how hard he was.  In just a moment all that furious, fine attention would be focused on him and... _Christ_. He pressed his thumb to the slit over the softness of the well-worn trackies, and couldn’t help the low gasp at the sensation.

 

Sherlock’s fingers froze mid-click, and John watched as Sherlock jerked his gaze up to John, eyes growing very, very wide as he stared, gaping a little in shock.

 

John knew how he had to look, face red from what he was doing, the tented tracksuit bottoms, his hand wrapped around himself, sprawled in the chair so that Sherlock would have an almost perfect view.  John pulled at the elastic, pulling them down and out so that his cock sprang out.

 

Sherlock’s swallow was audible, even across the room.

 

John sat up a little so that he could pull off his t-shirt, only wincing a little as the bruised skin pulled. He lifted his arse and kicked off the rest of his clothes, reaching for the bottle of lotion.  

 

“Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock jerked his gaze guiltily to John’s face. Hi pupils were dark with interest.

 

“Come here, Sherlock.”

 

Sherlock almost flailed, tripping and fumbling the laptop in his haste to comply. Fortunately the computer landed on the bed.  Sherlock was several feet away when John spoke again. “Stop, Right there is close enough.”

 

John didn’t expect Sherlock to fall coltishly to his knees as though his legs had just stopped working, but he couldn’t say that he didn’t appreciate the look of him like that, poised on all fours on the floor in front of him. John could have kicked out his leg and rested his toe on Sherlock’s shoulder, but he didn’t want to.... he didn’t quite want Sherlock to touch him yet.

 

The flip of the lotion’s lid was very loud in the quiet room.  John didn’t look away from Sherlock’s wide eyes. Having all of the detective’s attention like this was absolutely... it. _God_. Sherlock’s eyes narrowed as he watched John wank himself, slowly keeping the pace steady.

 

“I think that you like this.”  John was rather proud of how his voice didn’t break. Sherlock’s mouth was still open, and John watched his small, pink tongue as it flicked nervously over his lips. For a second he saw the confusion in Sherlock’s gaze; it made him stop, pulling his hand away from his dick so that he could focus properly on Sherlock.

 

“No, none of that now. I’m sorry for what I said. Before.” Sherlock opened his mouth to speak, visibly thought better of it, and shut his mouth.  It was obvious that he didn’t believe John in the slightest.  John watched as Sherlock moved slightly forward, as though he wasn’t sure if he were allowed. He kept darting little glances up at John’s face.

 

John swung his sore leg up over the arm of the chair, making sure that it was out of the way so that he wouldn’t bump the fragile, healing skin of his burn.  He knew that he was blushing, and from the low, dark sound Sherlock made, John knew that he had to be presenting a hell of a view.

 

John closed his fist around himself again, the slick sounds of the lotion loud in the quiet room.  

 

“Do you like this?”

 

Sherlock nodded frantically, reaching absently for the bulge in his jeans.

 

"Stop, Sherlock.” John didn’t miss the almost wounded look Sherlock shot him from under his eyelashes. “I’ll tell you when to touch yourself.  I just want you to watch. For now.” John’s grin was neither sweet nor kind and Sherlock visibly shivered, placing his hands on either side of his legs as he rocked back onto his heels into a more comfortable position, so that his bum was settled on his feet. John licked at his lower lip, dragging the callus of his thumb over the head of his cock. “See, though. What I’d really, really like is to have your fingers, yeah?”

 

Sherlock gasped.

 

“Yeah.” John drew out the word with fervour. “Those lovely, long fingers stretching me open so that I can fuck myself down on your cock.” John spoke as though having a conversation with himself. “But, I can’t, now can I?”

 

Sherlock actually started to nod his agreement before he blinked, then shook his head in dissent.

 

John would have smiled if he wasn’t so focused on what he was feeling. “I can’t... Sherlock. You’re quite clever, and you’ll put it together.”

 

John reached down and took one slick fingertip, sliding it around his hole, knowing what it had to look like by the punched out look on Sherlock’s face. He shifted on the chair, opening his legs the littlest bit wider as he teased himself, keeping his gaze on Sherlock’s.

 

Sherlock was digging his fingers into the fabric on his legs, as though he was trying desperately to remain still. John could clearly see the line of Sherlock’s dick pressed against his leg in the tight trousers. He watched the knowledge in Sherlock’s gaze sharpen and Sherlock was speaking almost before sucking in enough breath to speak, words almost stuttering as they tripped over each other.

“You were hurt and disappointed in me for succumbing to my habit. Obvious, expected even.  While I can assure you that I was never foolish enough to put myself in danger with a dirty needle, you have no way of believing my claim. That is why.” Sherlock stopped abruptly, as though he forgot how to speak.  His fingers clenched, bone white on his thighs.

 

John bit his lip as he teased with the first finger, stroking the outer rim before pressing inside. He was tight, and the position left him unable to reach how he wanted. It wouldn’t do to hurt his ribs or his burn after all- even to put in his little show for Sherlock.  John couldn't deny that he was more than a little furious at him, even though he was equally sorry for the cruel things he had said before they were captured. This was probably more than a bit not good, but John was enjoying putting on a show, _because_ he knew Sherlock was watching. It was a bit odd. Sherlock didn't strike him as particularly submissive, really. But this? The detective was perfectly content, even greedy, on his knees in front of John. His face was flushed and sweaty with his thin chest almost shuddering as he sucked in breath after trembling breath.

 

“Sherlock. Come here.”

 

Sherlock shuffled forward awkwardly on his knees, then leaned forward so that it was John’s turn to huff out a shocked groan when Sherlock’s breath ghosted against his skin. He took a deep breath and continued. “That is why we cannot have... sex without protection.”

 

“You’ve been prepared for everything else. I don’t suppose you brought a johnny with you.”

 

“I brought twelve. Naturally.”

 

John laughed at the way Sherlock’s ridiculous lie rolled off his tongue. He couldn’t even fathom Sherlock at the chemist’s buying rubbers.  Sherlock, who had obviously had enough of the slight streak of submissiveness, leaned over and kissed John’s knee on the exact same spot as before on the faded, yellow bruise.  It wasn’t a particularly dirty kiss, but John’s whole body jolted. Sherlock reached up to grab the lotion and worked it between his fingers, tilting his head to stare up at John along the length of his body.

 

“You do know that a water-based lubricant would be more comfortable.”

 

John stopped moving his fingers and stared at Sherlock in shock. “How exactly would you know?”

 

“Don’t be an idiot, John. I do masturbate. I’m quite efficient." He reached out and lightly wrapped his fingers around the base of John's cock. John shuddered at the view of Sherlock's long fingers clasped under his own.  "It's just fruh-friction, John."  Had John been able to better focus, he would have been downright smug at the obvious stutter of breath, proving that Sherlock wasn't as unaffected as he pretended to be.  John braced his other foot against the cushion for leverage so he could push up into Sherlock’s hands.  Having Sherlock as an active participant rocketed his already tense libido up to the breaking point.

 

“Friction. Is. Is...” John groaned, taking one slick hand and scrambling at Sherlock’s shoulder to bring him up so that their mouths could touch. “ _God_ , it’s ... yeah. Like that.” Sherlock kissed him hard, already having improved with the slight bit of practice they’d had, tightening his hands around John’s length until John came with a strangled groan of Sherlock’s name.

 

John kissed lazily at Sherlock’s mouth, content to watch as Sherlock took his hand and shoved them into his trousers, not bothering to unbutton them before he was coming, collapsing against John as though he’d lost all the strength in his body.

 

John just lay there, horribly aware at how dirty his hands were, at how uncomfortable at how clammy he felt with the sweat drying on his body and needing terribly to itch at his arse.  The lotion had clearly not been his best idea.

 

Sherlock started laughing weakly, pushing himself up on trembling forearms. He rested his forehead against John’s sternum for just a moment and heaved himself all the way up.  “I _told_ you that a different lubrication would be less...” He trailed off as John twisted awkwardly, itching furiously, only to burst out in a full belly laugh at the ridiculous (and only slightly embellished) faces John made for his entertainment.  John managed to pull the tattered scraps of his dignity around him as he heaved himself to his feet, making his way to the shower so that he could wash himself properly.

 

He was vaguely aware of Sherlock washing himself in the sink and changing his clothes. The silence was not as awkward as it could have been, but was still a bit weird.

 

“Sherlock?”

 

There was no answer. John tipped his head back and continued washing his hair. If nothing else, he was tremendously clean.  John heard a muffled crash and stuck his head out of the curtain, listening. Nothing.

 

“Sherlock?”

 

There was still no answer.

 

John sighed. Break over then; back to business. Still, getting off to alleviate boredom had been moderately successful. He had rather hoped that he could keep Sherlock’s attention for longer than he had done, but that was Sherlock on a case. John knew better than anyone how Sherlock was when that brilliant mind was focused on the work. Since the result was their safety, it was hard to complain.  

 

John twisted off the taps and wrapped a towel around himself, stepping out of the shower and wiping the steam from the mirror. He rolled his eyes at the crumped, come-covered towel Sherlock had tossed into the corner with his pants and trousers, smirking a little at his reflection. He wasn’t near 100% yet, but the forced convalescence had done its job, which, John assumed had been Sherlock’s plan.  John checked the burn and rebandaged it. It was still quite sore, but there was no sign of infection, although the healing skin was pink and fragile-feeling.  

 

There was a knock on the door.

 

John froze, his eyes narrowing in the mirror. Sherlock didn’t knock.  Until very recently, John hadn’t been aware that Sherlock knew _how_ to knock. He especially wouldn’t knock like _that_ , with such a jaunty rap-a-tap-tap.  John looked around the bathroom for something, anything he could use as a weapon. Paranoia caused his heart rate to triple, but his hands were steady as he calmly knotted the towel around his hips.  There was nothing at hand, unless John fancied winging a stick of deodorant at whoever was on the other side of the door’s head.

 

He had the choice of going out guns blazing, or going out and pretending that he had no idea of how wrong everything was. Perhaps that would give him some sort of an advantage.  With that decided, John put his hand on the doorknob, pushing it open and forcing a tone of normalcy in his voice as he called out again for Sherlock.

 

John was completely unprepared to see Mycroft standing there, hands folded casually over his umbrella as he peered over Sherlock’s shoulder so that his mouth was hidden from John’s view behind Sherlock’s head.  Sherlock was sitting so rigidly that he looked as though he would crack at the slightest provocation; listening to Mycroft’s whisper with his face frighteningly blank. Except for his eyes. Sherlock’s eyes were more furious than John had thought possible.

 

“Mycroft.”

 

John darted his gaze around the familiar room, looking for some other danger.  The only other person in the room was Anthea, who had actually stopped texting long enough to give John a long, very thorough once over.  John had to fight the urge to tighten the knot on his towel.

 

“John.”  Mycroft straightened, bypassing the chair where John and Sherlock had just had sex to seat himself primly on the small settee.  John had to force himself not to look over at Sherlock. Instead, he crossed to the bedroom and fished around for some clothes, ignoring all three of them as he crossed back into the bathroom, closing the door with a small click. He dressed on autopilot, uncomfortable with leaving the two brothers in the same room. The only sound to mark his leaving was a small squeak from the door.

 

The brothers seemed to be communicating only in eyebrow twitches, although Anthea was obviously a bit concerned. She kept shooting quick, nervous glances at Sherlock.

 

“What’s all this then?”  John ignored his wet hair and crossed to the kitchen to make tea. By this point, he knew how both the Holmes siblings took their  tea and was able to watch them both out of the corner of his eye as he went through the familiar routine. He had no illusions that his observation went unnoticed by either of them. “Anthea? How do you take your tea?”

 

“None for me thanks.” She flicked a glance up from her phone, her gaze skittering once again towards her employer and his brother, before firmly fixating back on her mobile’s screen.

 

The scene was almost domestic as John crossed the sudden gulf of space to hand both Holmeses their tea. Sherlock barely spared John a glance. Instead his sharp gaze was almost painfully intense as he took in his brother’s almost apathetically calm demeanour.

 

“So how did I mess up this time?” John spoke with a little smirk.

 

John crossed his ankles and blew on his scalding tea. The cheap ceramic felt blissful in his too-cold hands.

 

Mycroft’s reptilian gaze flicked once towards where John stood, before he carefully took a sip of his own tea. Even John could tell that Mycroft was avoiding the question.  

 

“Oh do shut---” Sherlock broke off with a gasp. He sat straight up in his chair as though electrocuted. The tea crashed onto the lino with a clatter of broken crockery.

 

Before John could blink, Sherlock was up and moving, his fist hitting Mycroft squarely on the jaw. John could only gape, slack-jawed as Mycroft overbalanced in the chair, sending the whole thing tipping over so that the back of Mycroft’s head hit the surface with a meaty thud. Sherlock was on top of him before John crossed the room, getting in another truly painful-looking punch right to his brother’s nose.

 

“That will be **ENOUGH**!” Anthea calmly grabbed Sherlock by the back of his curly head, catching his arm in a move that looked almost bored, managing to twist Sherlock off her boss with the simple momentum of Sherlock’s rather gangly flailing.  There was a sharp kick to the back of Sherlock’s knee, a sweep of a stylish Jimmy Choo, and Sherlock fell to the floor with a pained-sounding _whumph_ of lost air. John would have been narked, but he saw how she was careful not to really hurt his furious flatmate. John almost caught a heel to the face as Sherlock struggled, fruitlessly attempting to break Anthea’s hold. She kicked off her heels with a sigh, pressed her weight onto Sherlock’s back, kept his arm bent behind him, with the other shoulder pinned to the ground.

 

John stepped over Sherlock and assisted Mycroft with his bloody nose, ignoring the snarling, spitting man throwing a rather spectacular wobbler on the floor next to him.

 

“I ab afraid I rader deser’ed that.” Mycroft’s usually condescending tones were muffled by his attempts to control the bleeding with his own silk handkerchief. John did an about face, grabbed the nearest tea towel on the radiator, and held it to Mycroft’s face, still staring at Sherlock who had not given up his fury one whit. If Anthea hadn’t been holding him so solidly, John had no doubts that Sherlock would be inflicting some other form of harm on his brother’s person.

 

“You deserved to be chinned and a bloody nose? I can’t wait to hear this.” John’s tone was mild. He was certain it didn’t fool Mycroft for a moment. John bent and righted the chair, batting away Mycroft’s unhelpful hands with an annoyed huff of air. “Quit poking at it.” John gave it a careful tug to test the cartilage. “It’s not broken at least.”

 

Mycroft stepped back with a strangely wounded look at John’s doctoring technique. John found that he was quickly approaching his tolerance for either Holmes and their rather insane brand of quirky behaviour.  He left Mycroft once again seated in the chair, dabbing fussily at his nose, turning to the still silently fuming Sherlock. John kneeled down, ignoring the crack of his cartilage as he knelt.

 

“Come on then, genius. Tell us what he has done now.” John’s voice was purposefully gentle. “Can’t be all that bad, now can it?”

 

Futile words. John was beginning to get the inkling that he would want no part of whatever it was that had infuriated Sherlock so.

 

Sherlock twisted his body, attempting to throw off the small assistant like an angry bull would its rider. Athena was like a particularly stubborn burr, her seemingly slight body perfectly comfortable holding down the struggling detective for what looked like hours. John felt himself reaching down and holding both of Sherlock’s cheeks, gently guiding his face so that their gazes met.

 

Anthea made a truly horrifyingly adorable ‘aww’ sound and leaned back slightly so that Sherlock could look up at John without straining himself. “Come on then. Tell me. It will take me too long to put it together myself.”

 

Sherlock seemed to collapse on himself like a puppet whose strings had been cut. Anthea calmly rose, made a dark sound in the back of her throat at the small ladder in her stockings and slid back into her shoes. John had no doubt that she was armed, and _absolutely_ no doubt that she wouldn’t hesitate to use any force necessary to subdue Sherlock, should her employer’s safety require it.

 

“He.” Sherlock stopped, his gaze changing as he focused completely on John. Sherlock ran a nervous tongue over his lips and John had no desire to check his movement; he lightly brushed his lips over Sherlock’s, both of them rolling their eyes at the repeated ‘aww’ from Anthea.

 

“Tell me.”

 

“Mycroft. My... _brother_ has used you as bait!”

 

The statement, although said with Sherlock’s normal flare for the dramatic, caused very little stir on its audience.  “Tracking device. Likely placed in. In my sodding _messenger bag_.” Sherlock jerked out of John’s hold and stomped over to his deplorable-looking rucksack.  “I caught the bug on my phone in Cairo- never dreamed that the tubby miscreant would be clever enough to. Oh. Of course. Irene.” Sherlock whirled to the bag and ripped it open and inside out, searching. It didn’t take him long.  He held the small wire with the miniscule oblong tracking device up with another snarl, and then flung it into Mycroft’s tea. “The bomb. Obvious. Had to have had some kind of leak of information to Moran. My own _brother_ used me to track your whereabouts until you were kidnapped! One agent couldn’t possibly have gone as high as serving on our detail in MI5 without being thoroughly checked out by my sibling’s ever-diligent bulldog over there.”

 

Mycroft made a sound of protest, started to rise, looked over to Anthea who stood placidly inspecting a fingernail, quite obviously came to the conclusion that she could handle herself, and settled back into his uncomfortable chair. John was quite hard-pressed not to smile.

 

“Think on it, John. You were researched and moved to that warehouse within hours of our initial meeting.” Sherlock was pacing now, his speed increasing as his conclusions fell from his lips. “I could not fathom how Mycroft could have such bumbling incompetence in his corps of minions. No. No. He used you, John. Like a lamb to the slaughter, to draw out the bigger prey lurking just out of his reach.” Sherlock whirled to meet John’s gaze, the triumph of connecting the dots overshadowed by his righteous anger that of all people, John would be used so callously by Sherlock’s brother.

 

John scratched the back of his head, wincing a little.  He looked from Mycroft’s bleeding nose, to Anthea’ s carefully apparent boredom, and back to Sherlock, standing in the middle of the room, almost quivering with barely- suppressed rage.

 

“Ah.” John sighed. Oh, bollocks. There was no way this was going to go over well. John saw the slight shift on Sherlock’s face, the minute tensing of muscles in his jaw and knew that Sherlock was beginning to truly understand. “Of... of course he did, Sherlock. Use me as bait, I mean.” John paused again, meeting Sherlock’s betrayed gaze with his own unflinching one. He would not apologize for this.

 

“Who do you think gave him the idea?”

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Er.. I know. This was a WIP that got away from me. I'm good now though, and should be back to my two week (NOT eight month!) posting schedule.


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have oodles of thanks for FoxyK, Diva, and jlm for everything. Sorry, you’ll notice that I split this into two chapters, with the second chapter to be posted soon. This part does leave off on sort of a cliff-hanger, so if you want to wait to read, it should be up by erm. Wednesday. Or you can subscribe to the author alert. 
> 
> This is a pretty graphic chapter. Please see the notes at the end for specifics.

**-Now-**  
  
He could have heard a pin drop. John watched the knowledge of what he’d just said slowly register on Sherlock’s face and refused to wince. John straightened his shoulders and stood his ground, jutting up his chin slightly. He would _not_ apologize. Sherlock blinked once, then again more rapidly before narrowing his gaze. John watched as colour crept slowly up his cheeks.

  
“You….”

 

  
“Yes. Me. I told your brother to use me as bait. Why shouldn’t I have done? He wanted to draw out Moran and I wanted to help.” John shrugged. “It was logical.”

 

  
Anthea made a small sound in the back of her throat. Dimly, John became aware that she was looking at Mycroft much the same way Sherlock was looking at him. It was rather on the disconcerting side, to say the least. Usually she was so unruffled. Some odd little part of his mind noticed that Mycroft was very carefully not making eye contact with his assistant.

 

  
Sherlock stood stock still for several more minutes, then whirled in a flurry of sudden activity, furiously scrubbing his hands through his curls as he thought, baring his teeth in a snarl.

 

  
“Now, Sherlock...” Mycroft’s oily tones only served to remind both Sherlock and John that he was still in the room. Sherlock crossed to the window and stood with his forehead against the drapes, his shoulders heaving.

 

  
“Leave us.”

 

John and Anthea shared a quick glance, then as one turned their gazes back to Sherlock. John found it very difficult to not to go to him but knew that, injuries or no, he had a rather spectacular chance of landing on his arse if he touched Sherlock now. Mycroft’s nose could attest to that. Before Sherlock had... left, he might not have been so prone to using his fists, but this Sherlock was more aggressive than John was used to.  
  
Mycroft sighed as though coming out to ... wherever Sherlock had contrived for them to go into hiding was only a minor inconvenience. Maybe for him it was. John still had no idea what country they were even in. As Sherlock was quick to mention (and often exploit) Mycroft _was_ the British Government after all. A helicopter to the bloody middle of nowhere would not be too much of a stretch of either manpower or discretionary funds.  
  
“You have three hours, brother mine.”  
  
Sherlock said nothing and John could only ignore the tightening of his throat as the door closed behind them with a small click. More to have something to do than for any latent desire to drink tea, John did an abrupt about-face and went into the kitchen to make some. Filling the kettle and switching it on was calming. He had to shake his head when he automatically pulled down two mugs. Even when Sherlock was... gone... it had been hard to break that habit.  
  
“You know it’s weird that it’s not weird when I make two cups.” John’s voice was falsely bright, conversational. He wasn’t entirely sure that treating Sherlock’s mood like an everyday strop was the wisest course of action. Sherlock was stubborn enough to let it go on for the next fortnight if John let him. Best to have it out. “Took me awhile. I can’t say I ever got over it, really.”  
  
“You were going to kill yourself. That was not part of Mycroft’s plan.” Sherlock’s voice was closer than John had anticipated, and the low baritone caused a small flinch that John was unable to hide. He turned to see a Sherlock that he almost didn’t recognize, closed off and so cold looking as to seem inhuman. “Swallow a bullet and leave a mess for Mrs. Hudson to find in the morning. And they call _me_ the emotionally stunted one.”  
  
John winced. “No firing pin.” Sherlock didn’t even blink. John felt himself needing to explain, as though he had to excuse his actions. Which was laughable when he thought about it, given recent events. John was fairly certain that he would see Sherlock’s coat flying behind him in his nightmares for several years to come. John sucked in a sharp breath. “When it came down to it, duds made my skin crawl and blanks-” The tea whistled and John poured, fixing his own and leaving Sherlock’s on the countertop. “Blanks could have caused a fire. On my face. Wasn’t really looking forward to that. And... no. To answer your other questions, Mycroft _did_ know.” John huffed a sigh and took a too-hot sip of his scalding tea. “Shit. You are going to want to sit down for this. I can’t see how it matters now, telling you.” The last John said more to himself than to Sherlock, but he had no illusions that his former flatmate did not hear him by the way his shoulders drew even more tense with suppressed emotion.  
  
Sherlock very carefully did not touch him as John walked back through the doorway and sat down on the settee. Sherlock tried using his height to his advantage, looming over John to get him to talk, but John calmly waited him out, taking the occasional sip of his tea. It was Mycroft’s time table that he was working against after all. When Sherlock sat down as far away from John as the room would allow, John began again, rolling his eyes.  
  
“After you jumped, I was... a bit of a mess. In a state. Was more than a bastard to Mrs. H, drinking too much, fucking far too much, getting into fights... whatever I could do to keep my mind off it. Never really worked. I hated the smell of stale alcohol on my skin after a night out, couldn’t stand myself after bringing home a random shag to the flat, and Molly got to the point where she wouldn’t look at me when I needed her help with medical care.... anything I couldn’t reach myself. Of course, I suppose now _that_ had far more to do with you than with her.” Sherlock didn’t respond. John hadn’t really expected him to. It was a bit of work to keep his voice calm and inflectionless as he spoke. No matter how calm he seemed, it still gutted him that Sherlock had felt that he couldn’t go to John with his plan. That Sherlock didn’t trust him enough.  
  
“About a week later, Mycroft came to me with a file. Can’t say as I was particularly pleased to see him, to tell the truth.” Sherlock didn’t even snort at this. John took another sip of his tea and sighed. “Details on a Sebastian Moran. Sharp-shooter, suspected of working with that Irish bastard you were so fond of, linked to three other terrorist organizations that Mycroft was aware of.” That caused Sherlock’s body to jerk in place, his eyes turning even more glacial. “So the plan was to offer myself up as bait to draw him out. I didn’t have much of a reason not to, and I rather liked the idea of not sitting on my arse, being pathetic.”  
  
Sherlock snorted.... and John lost his temper. It flared up like an ember suddenly consumed with oxygen.  
  
“Look! You don’t have much of a leg to stand on given that you _jumped off a fucking roof_ to play Moriarty’s little game. Oh, sure you can tell yourself that it was for Lestrade, or for Mrs. Hudson, or even for me, but we both know that it was for the game, Sherlock. The bloody fucking _game_ that you love so much. You’re not angry that I ran into the line of fire. You’re just livid that you didn’t get to _pull the strings._ ”  
  
Sherlock flinched as though John had struck him.  
  
John set the tea down with a decisive click, ignoring the liquid that splashed back onto his wrist. It was quite difficult to rein in his damnable temper. John watched his hand as it trembled, then pointedly stopped trembling. He flexed his fingers once, then once again as he stared at the small splash of tea as it rolled over his knuckles and down onto his jeans. He wiped it absently and forced himself to look over at Sherlock. John was furious at himself for feeling guilty at the naked emotion on Sherlock’s face- emotion that Sherlock either could not or would not stifle. His eyes were closed, the flush high on his cheekbones as he leant back in the chair. The rest of Sherlock’s face was horribly pale. The normally elegant fingers that he’d usually steeple over his mouth in his favourite thinking pose were shaking, much like John’s own.  
  
Pointedly keeping his voice calm, John started again. It was more difficult than he imagined. “Mycroft suspected that Moriarty had a second-in-command. As I said, the name he gave was Moran. But, Moran was a ghost. No trace of him. Someone was taking down Moriarty's syndicate-” John couldn’t help the pointed look he gave Sherlock here- “and not even that was enough to bring the bastard out. So.... we laid some traps of our own.” John pinched his nose. “You weren’t meant to be there, you know. To see me shoot myself, or to call to stop me. _that_ threw quite a spanner in the works, let me tell you. Your brother was _apoplectic_.” John scraped his fingernail over the small stain, too cowardly even to attempt to meet Sherlock’s gaze. “Even after, it was a bit of a slapdash bit of planning. Mycroft was adamant that the both of us continue on as bait, and I was just as adamant that... you stay safe.” John shook his head at his stupidity. John trailed off, out of words. There was nothing else to explain, really. He had done what he had done, and he would do it again if it meant Sherlock stay safe.  
  
“I see.” Sherlock’s voice was utterly devoid of inflection; a simple acknowledgement of facts. He stood and turned, walking calmly to the facilities and shutting the door behind him with a quiet click.  
  
John thought his heart would stop. He was used to Sherlock throwing things, to him stopping around the flat, over furniture and around stacks of books as he thought or expressed his displeasure. Quietly standing and shutting the door- the only door in the large open space that afforded any privacy- was bizarrely out of character, and John did not quite know what to do with it.  
  
****  
  
_You weren’t meant to be there, you know._  
  
Once, when Sherlock was young, he had fallen out of a tree. Regrettably, he had been unable to blame the entire incident on Mycroft, as he had been off at school at the time. Sherlock had deleted the details of why he had been in the tree in the first place, as well as the particular incident that had caused him to lose his balance and fall, but Sherlock had never deleted the feeling of landing, of the velocity of his body striking the hard, unforgiving ground and all of the oxygen in his lungs immediately dissipating.  
  
He stood there clutching the porcelain of the basin so hard that his fingers were numb, trying to remember how to breathe. He had not been struck. His solar plexus and lungs were undamaged. He had not been shot, nor had fallen from a great distance.  
  
Hearing John’s explanation caused him to react in the same way.  
  
Sherlock was not... this was not something he... It made no _sense_! Stubbornly, he refused to meet his own reflection in the mirror. He forced himself to suck in a gasping, heaving breath, knowing that he sounded like an asthmatic.  
  
He became aware that his knees felt wobbly and Sherlock sank to the floor, turning so his legs were stretched out in front of him, back against the tub staring blankly at the door. He desperately needed to bring his hard drive back online, because he felt like all of his synapses had gone on strike. His mind was wrapped in cotton wool, the thoughts fuzzy and indistinct.  
  
If this was one of the so-called “benefits” of embracing strong emotion, then Sherlock wanted no part of it.  
  
Sherlock became aware that he hadn't, in fact, lost consciousness. Still breathing, then. Obvious. His breaths were a little too fast, and he made a concentrated effort to calm the pace of each inhale and exhale.  
  
This was ridiculous. He had no time for such ... nonsense. Mycroft had given him three hours, and Sherlock knew better than anyone that if he did not present a fully-realized and operable plan then Mycroft would take over the entire operation. Sherlock would be neither invited, nor needed, and John would be... gone.  
  
Unacceptable.  
  
Sherlock found himself fully aware of the irony of using John as a.... emotional barometer. Now though, the barometer was giving him readings Sherlock could not process.  
  
Sherlock made a face at the loo roll. _This_ is what he had come to. Maudlin Metaphors. And alliteration, apparently. Still... he did not have time for an extended jaunt into his Mind Palace. Instead, he shut his eyes, drawing himself into his thinking pose, and firmly boxed up the feeling of John’s lips pressed to his trembling ones, the feel of John’s fingers cupping his jaw, on John’s taste, on what it felt like to wake up next to....  
  
His stomach lurched, shoulders sagging in defeat. How was he meant to process all this? It was just... too much. His clumsy attempts to get John to notice him, to want him even slightly as much as Sherlock wanted him had all contributed to the mess he now found himself in. Sherlock had pushed and schemed... and now? Sherlock sucked in another breath, biting his lip. He couldn’t think like this, and if he couldn’t think then...  
  
The door flew open with a crash. Sherlock jumped, adrenaline flooding his system. John caught the door on autopilot, stepping inside and into Sherlock’s space. He stood there with his shoulders heaving, staring at Sherlock as though he had to memorize every inch of his skin. As though there’d be a quiz later. Sherlock was not quick enough to process the emotions on John’s face before they were abruptly stifled. Why was he..? Oh. _Oh._ Obvious. The knowledge of what John thought was inexplicably painful. He bent his head, staring hard at the floor, clasping his hands in front of him between his raised legs.  
  
“I was not running in here to shoot up, John.” Sherlock didn’t even try to mask the exhausted apathy in his tone. What was the point? One shouldn’t trust an addict. Every action, every _re_ action was to be under constant scrutiny. It spoke of a lack of trust, and really. What reason had Sherlock given John to trust him? Everything that John had said out there had the appalling distinction of being _true_. Sherlock’s throat tightened, the feeling causing his eyes to burn. _This_ is what his actions had produced. His “grand” plan. John was right. Sherlock really was immeasurably stupid.  
  
To Sherlock’s great surprise, John did not nod and leave him to his misery. Had Sherlock not been feeling quite so gutted, he would have smiled to see yet another instance where John Watson did the unexpected. Sherlock jerked his gaze up from the floor when he felt John sit down beside him with a little grunt of pain as his knees popped. John did not put the expected distance between them, instead sitting so that their shoulders and thighs touched, John’s legs stretched out in front of him. They were quiet for several minutes until John slowly reached out and touched Sherlock’s cold hands, spindly fingers tangled together so tightly that they looked bloodless. Sherlock was struck by the visual of John’s fingers on his, and stared stupidly for several minutes.  
  
“I don’t think we could have fucked this up more if we’d planned it all out in advance.”  
  
Sherlock was shocked into a snort of agreement, and turned to John. John moved so that he trailed his hands up from Sherlock’s clasped ones, up his arm, to his shoulder until he was cupping Sherlock’s neck, straining up a little so that he could tip their heads together. Sherlock felt his traitorous heart give a feeble sort of leap, only have it lodge firmly in his throat when John spoke.  
  
“I’m not sorry, Sherlock. I won’t be kept safe like some damsel in distress. You said that it could be dangerous and...”  
  
“Here you are.” Sherlock’s voice was not his own, deeper and gritty than his normal speaking voice.  
  
“Here I am.” Sherlock could not see John’s mouth from this angle, but he could tell from the words that his doctor was smiling. Incredible. Unfathomable. _Never. Boring._  
  
Neither one of them moved for quite awhile, even though Sherlock’s head felt like it was stretching like a piece of gum, ready to fall off his neck. He became aware that they were breathing in sync. It was strangely calming, and made the crushed, sick feeling in his stomach dissipate somewhat. Perhaps Sherlock had not ruined everything after all? Could that be even possible?  
  
John sighed and pulled away slowly. Sherlock was at once utterly heartbroken and simultaneously filled with the shaky beginnings of hope. Though John had not initiated a kiss, he had not pushed Sherlock away either. Though Sherlock was gutted, the affection heartened him; perhaps... perhaps John _did_ want him... not as a lover, but maybe still as a friend?  
  
Sherlock was a glutton in all things he found interesting, but in this perhaps he should not ... push. Let John take the lead for the emotional side. Sherlock copied John’s movement, letting his head fall back against the glass of the shower with a small thud. With John here it didn’t hurt as much to attempt to box up all his feelings once again. Well, perhaps not _all_ of them. And if the boxes were more... baskets with ill-fitting lids, that was Sherlock’s problem. He had no doubt that he could do this.  
  
But not without his blogger. Not without John.  
  
“Your arse of a brother will likely parachute through the fireplace if we do not stick to his three hour warning. Although, I am curious to see what he would do if we weren’t ready.”  
  
And just like that, everything clicked into place. Sherlock sucked in a sharp breath, his body tensing before he sprung up, like a spring that had been coiled too long. He wrapped his fingers around John’s wrist and pulled him to his feet, sternly ignoring the visceral memory of what the muscles and tendons under the skin of John’s wrist had looked like when he---  
  
Sherlock huffed an impatient breath and mentally jammed the lid back onto the basket, shoving a heavy book on top of it, before flouncing out of that wing of his Mind Palace and locking the door.  
  
“Mycroft’s latest intelligence- well, Anthea’s really. My brother does _so_ loathe fieldwork- shows Moran in London. He’s been keeping his hand in trifling matters, more to taunt us than to accomplish any real crime as Moriarty had done.” Sherlock couldn’t help the slight pout that accompanied this statement. John caught it and hid his own smile by biting his lip. John followed him out of the loo, seating himself at the small kitchen table once again. Sherlock made a short detour for his laptop, then sat it on the table in front of the two of them.  
  
“Sherlock....” John was strangely tentative. “I think you need to tell me everything.”  
  
Sherlock thought it was rather well-done of him that he didn’t mention that _he_ wasn’t the one who had so recently been so... distracting. Not that he minded, exactly.  
  
Oh, damn.  
  
He frowned mentally and added a cinder block on top of the book on top of the basket in that wing of his palace. He did not have the leisure to delete all of... that. He would simply have to concentrate.  
  
“Of course.” He opened his laptop and quickly typed his password, careful not to meet John’s gaze. It wasn’t cowardice per se, but he simply did not want to startle John out of this new, fragile mood; one where John wasn’t particularly shouty. “As I said, Moran has been feeding Mycroft information. I did not know that you and he had been.... working together to make Moran show his hand.” On the whole, Sherlock was rather proud of how even his voice sounded there. He cleared his throat.  
  
“So, now you have something that Moran wants. Shouldn’t be too hard to get his attention.”  
  
Sherlock frowned down at his tracking spreadsheet. He had the data, and now knowing the final piece of John’s involvement made things slot into place like the tumbler in a lock. He could _see_ the elements he needed float up from his laptop screen, twisting and arranging themselves as though watching a film on fast forward, with each sequence and plan folding out in his brain with all the abruptness of a suddenly unfurled umbrella. Sherlock frowned slightly. Umbrellas. Mycroft. Would need to be in place; this plan unfortunately required the use of his minions. The timing would have to be impeccable. And John. John was simply vital, like the oxygen added to flame before the explosion.  
  
“What are you thinking, Sherlock?”  
  
Sherlock blinked, frowning, the images in his mind floating away, leaving John’s familiar face blinking at him. He was uncomfortably aware that he had been staring for several minutes, lost utterly in his palace.  
  
“How are your injuries?”  
  
John’s eyebrow rose. “Bit sore. Nothing I can’t handle.”  
  
Sherlock once again saw their earlier act--  
  
No.  
  
Saw John sitting next to him in the loo, waiting, mirroring Sherlock’s pose. John had acted in Sherlock’s best interests, performing the service that he needed the most at the time, utterly ignoring his own not inconsequential pain from Moran’s last attempt to play with them.  
  
Sherlock could not stop the barrage of images; his eidetic memory seeing with perfect detail John in that sodding fucking _box_ curled up, terrified, naked and somehow smaller than John should ever be, his arm wavering as he raised the gun...  
  
With a movement so sudden that it caused John to jump slightly in his chair, Sherlock reached out to grab his mobile, noting with a twist of his lips that his arse of a brother had sent a text moments before, no doubt knowing exactly what had transpired here. It had perhaps been a bit ambitious to think that Mycroft would not know his every move.  
  
**-Will return in ten minutes, little brother. Be ready.**  
  
Ugh. Insufferable _prat_.  
  
******  
  
John didn’t like this.  
  
John didn’t like this at _all._  
  
He had accepted that there would be a certain level of smoke and mirrors when dealing with Sherlock, but once Mycroft was added into the mix…  
  
John felt like he was in an overly dramatic Bond film.  
  
First was the choice of location. Sherlock had sworn that their meeting place was not his preference, and indeed had shown John the text that Moran had sent with the address. John’s throat had tightened. He did not think that he would ever forget that address- the smell of chlorine or the claustrophobic pull of that fucking parka weighted with Semtex. Sherlock had seemed oddly blasé about the entire thing, as though the choice of location had no secondary memory for him at all. Perhaps he had deleted it. That possibility bothered John more than he wanted to admit.  
  
The setting of the pool lent a level of ambience that was, quite frankly, ridiculous. Sherlock had said, almost offhandedly, that there had been some teenagers who had drowned after roughhousing. They had fallen over the upper decks and one boy had struck his head on the concrete, dying instantly when he broke his neck. Sherlock had sniffed and muttered something about Darwin--’Darwin? Of _course_ , I know who Charles Darwin was, John. _Ob_ viously.’-- winning in the end, but as a result the area was still under renovation. The workers had quite obviously left rather quickly. Mycroft’s doing, of course. The detritus of a busy workday still hung about with paint, scaffolding and the materials to build up the railing. The pool must have recently been refilled, with its cover covering the width of most of the length of the pool. Clearly they had left part of it uncovered to test for chemicals. The lights were off, leaving everything quite dark. The changing rooms had already been renovated, so that there were fewer rooms but slightly larger, offering more privacy. You could no longer see anyone’s feet when they changed, and the doors had locks. It all provided a strange realization: this was not a film. This was very, very real.  
  
Still, that seemed all on the up and up, until John factored in the fact that if Moran picked their meeting place, then there had to be some sort of plan involved. Second was to sweep the area and make sure that Mycroft had his people in place. No bombs that they could find (given their location- John would _really_ rather have some sort of definitive proof that there were no bombs anywhere about, thanks.) and Mycroft’s minions were deployed around the area, on scaffolding and in the seating above.  
  
It was beyond mad that Mycroft’s people were likely in the same places that Moriarty’s snipers had been. It was a little awe-inspiring (not to mention terrifying) that Mycroft could make things happen so easily. And so quickly. Well, not that Mycroft was there. Fieldwork. John smirked.  
  
Anthea was on-site instead, curled up in one of the locker rooms, and John honestly couldn’t say that her presence made him feel any less arbitrary. She had obviously had extensive military training that made John feel a little abashed that his form wasn’t quite as precise as hers. Sherlock, John, Mycroft and Athena all had small earpieces so that they could communicate. Athena would handle the minions, Sherlock would handle Moran (per the text) and John... well John was not entirely sure what his function was. He could not see her from his hidden perch in the small press box. He had a bird’s eye view of Sherlock pacing fretfully. He could see the shadowy outline of the ten SIS agents, but only because he was looking for them. It was frustrating beyond belief that he was up here, where it was quite obviously deemed rather more safe, than down by the pool with Sherlock. Per the usual, he was on the outskirts of Sherlock’s orbit. Sherlock had been insistent on John’s presence, if not his involvement.  
  
Waiting on the signal that Moran was approaching was intolerable. He could hear the rhythm of Sherlock pacing, the staccato click of his shoes echoing slightly on the concrete around the pool. Sherlock’s nervous energy was almost contagious. John pressed his forehead against the cool wood of the booth, fighting to get the adrenaline under control.  
  
“Small motorbike approaching.”  
  
Anthea’s clear, calm voice caused everyone in the facility to jerk to attention. Mycroft had cleared the neighbourhood for three blocks in all directions, so an approach of a vehicle was a cause of interest.  
  
“One rider, male. Knapsack on his back.”  
  
John sucked in a shaky breath, tensing his muscles, ready for action. He wasn’t as sore as he expected, but supposed that the sudden spike of adrenaline was cause for some his wires being crossed.  
  
“Let him approach.” John could see Sherlock straighten, focusing on the door of the facility with every pore of his body. John shivered a little. John heard the calm voice in his ear tracking the movements of the lone motorbike’s occupant. The door swung open with a bang and John watched Sherlock flinch, immediately aware that it was not Moran in front of them. The man was dressed in biker leathers, and was both taller and heavier than Moran.  
  
“Sherlock Holmes?”  
  
Sherlock cocked his head. John couldn’t see his face from this angle, but could guess that he was rolling his eyes.  
  
“Obviously. Where’s Moran?”  
  
“I’ve been instructed to give you this.” The man reached into his jacket and things got rather intense for the next few minutes, with three agents appearing out of nowhere, forcing the man to his knees, then onto the concrete surface around the pool as they searched him.  
  
John froze, hearing something that sent his heart thudding crazily in his chest. He felt as though he’d been punched in the stomach, hard and fast.  
  
“Sherlock.”  
  
Sherlock ignored him, all his attention on the man on the floor. One small part of John’s mind was glad to see that he seemed to have listened to his and Anthea’s warnings, and was somewhat patiently (well, patient for Sherlock) waiting for the SAS to do their jobs.  
  
John heard it again and his skin crawled. That wasn’t possible.  
  
“Sherlock...”  
  
Sherlock glanced briefly up at him, his attention obviously diverted. John decided to investigate for himself. It wasn’t like his post was necessary to the plan after all. That was why he was up here and the action was down there. Crouching, he made his way out of the press box, waiting until he was almost there before speaking again. John’s time in the military had given him many skills, and moving silently was only one of them. “There’s a ... ringtone. It’s muffled. I think it’s up on the scaffolding.” John started moving carefully, listening to the damnable ringtone grow louder and louder as he moved closer. He wasn’t sure what made him pop the earpiece out of his ear, but it seemed dreadfully important that he make absolutely _certain_ , absolutely _positive_ that what he was hearing was correct.  
  
It was Stayin’ Alive. Moriarty’s ringtone.  
  
John felt like he was moving through treacle. He could hear his heartbeat thudding in his ears.  
  
From far away, John heard Anthea’s tinny-sounding voice tell him to stop his approach and ignored her as he walked towards the large construct of scaffolding. He could hear conversation by the pool- the unidentified man insisting that he was just supposed to give something to Mr. Sherlock Holmes, and only Sherlock Holmes, to Sherlock’s confusion when the object was just an envelope.  
  
John climbed up the ladder, wincing at the pull in his shoulder. “Looks like a box.” He couldn’t see much. It was a shadowy object in the corner of the scaffolding. The sound of the ringtone was loud enough to pick up over John’s earpiece, and he heard Sherlock’s “oh” of surprise the same time Anthea’s voice cracked across the earpiece, shouting. “John, _stop!_ ”  
  
John didn’t particularly want to stop. His mind was whirling with the idea that this was oh, so obviously a trap, that he should spring it before Sherlock was hurt, that something was going on that not even Mycroft could control. He felt his shoulder screaming at him, warning him that taking his weight that way after being dislocated was a very, very bad idea.  
  
“John.”  
  
Sherlock’s long fingers tightened around his wrist, halting his hand before he could touch the box. It looked to be an old-fashioned steamer trunk, that wasn’t there before during their initial checks. John could see the weathered leather, the brass straps and large combination lock; anachronistic with the age of the trunk. John flinched as he blinked back to himself, confused as to how Sherlock could be here on the scaffolding with him. Sherlock was breathing heavily as though he had just chased down a criminal, sweat lightly dusting his upper lip.  
  
Dimly, the part of John’s subconscious with the medical degree bleated about PTSD and shock, but that did not keep him from reaching again to the trunk. The box. _John_ had been in a box. Was there someone there? Was _Moriarty_ there? Sherlock had cleverly faked his death, and Moriarty was at least as clever as Sherlock so---”  
  
“John.” Sherlock’s fingers tightened on his wrist, then let go as though burnt when John looked up to meet his eyes. Sherlock had been holding him so tightly that the imprint of his fingers flared pink before fading to John’s normal skin tone, visible even in the shadowy darkness of their hiding spot.  
  
“Oi, is ‘e okay?” The head of one of the MI6 popped up on the other end of the scaffolding, pulling himself up and grunting in pain as he knocked his knee on one of the paint cans. There were roughly thirty feet from one end of the wood to the other, with the box situated on the far end, near John and Sherlock. The MI6 agent bent to rub his knee and when he stood, the moonlight flashed malevolently on the Browning High Power the man held in his hand and John felt Sherlock go very, very still next to him.  
  
“Come over here, Johnny boy.”  
  
John could not help the small, hurt sound he made at hearing that voice again. Gone was the accent, the attempt to hide in plain sight. Moran stood there with one eyebrow raised in triumph as John tried to swallow against the sudden lump of terror in his throat. With a blink, every single way Moran had tortured him sped through his mind like a film on fast forward. He took a step back, noticing almost absently that Sherlock’s hand had clamped onto his shoulder like a vice, turning his body slightly so that he was closer to Moran than John was.  
  
No. That wasn’t right. He should protect Sherlock, not ....  
  
“You’ve gone to a great bit of trouble to get us here. What is it that you want?”  
  
“John, you have five seconds to move next to me and kneel or I will shoot Sherlock in the head. BOOM. Some of that clever might get all ... over... you...”  
  
Oh god. His voice. That bloody sing-song cadence again. Too much like Moriarty. Moriarty too much like Moran. Was it on purpose? Affected? John sucked in his breath and pulled his mind back to Moran’s order, moving forward, kneeling and placing his hands behind his head. No. Maybe he would just shoot him, let Sherlock have enough time to go, to get away to...  
  
“Move a little... yes. Good.” John felt the cold barrel of the gun against his head. “Good little pet, isn’t he. Jim wasn’t very fond of him, but I’m starting to see the appeal. So!” Moran grinned. “Here’s the deal. Sherlock, you like puzzles. I will give you a puzzle, but you must solve it quickly. I see that you opened the envelope I gave you, yeah?”  
  
Sherlock was strangely silent, his attention focused inward. John was almost unsurprised to see four laser red sights dance over the paleness of Sherlock’s skin. There were already too many parallels to what had happened here previously.  
  
“You...” Sherlock’s voice was blank, the look on his face slowly morphing to one of acute confusion. “This.” His eyes darted around to where his brother’s minions should have been before skittering back towards John.  
  
Moran threw back his head and laughed, the sound echoing eerily through the pool. “Are you putting it together yet? Have you figured it out?” John felt the scrape of the barrel of the gun move from the base of his skull up to his temple. “No?” Moran made a tsking sound.  
  
The ringtone went off once again, startling Sherlock into a flinch.  
  
“Ah, Ah Ah Ah.... Sherlock! You look like you need a clue. Whatever is the matter? Can’t think so well when your precious Johnny boy is being threatened?” Moran’s tone changed, becoming more intense, focused. “I could just shoot him now and be done with it.”  
  
Sherlock’s tongue flicked out to wet his lips in a wholly uncharacteristically nervous gesture, his gaze falling to John’s before jumping back to the trunk. It gave John almost a physical jolt. John could see shock there, terror. Desperation. It all helped push the floaty, bizarre feeling down somewhat, allowing John to think. It was not easy. He could smell the chlorine from the pool, and the slightly sour stench of Moran’s sweat, memorable in brutal detail from when John was on that table in the warehouse.  
  
John would get Sherlock out of this. He couldn’t begin to say where everything had gone to shit with their little plan, but he would be damned if Sherlock did not make it out alive, preferably unscathed. He could do that much.  
  
“You won’t. You need me, and you know that I won’t coopera-”  
  
“Ah, but I don’t. Need you. Such arrogance. Do you really think that I would set up this little party just for you? I. _**had**. you._ But, yes, it is time to move this along. All this drama. It does make me miss Jim. Did love his bit of theatre, that one.”  
  
Moran was quiet for a moment. John felt like he was clawing his way out of a tub of porridge, his synapses slow and uncoordinated with disuse. He understood that he had missed something... something vital in Moran’s speech, but could not focus well enough to make the connection.  
  
“Now. Sherlock, you’ve no doubt worked out how this will all play out. My associates have informed me that big brother will be here soon. I’ve left a few... surprises for him. I know he rarely does field work and one must make an effort to make it... exciting.” Moran’s grin gleamed in the moonlight. “And what he finds here will depend largely on you. You’ve no doubt already worked out what my little present is. Of course you did, clever boy. Now here’s the rub.” Moran kicked at John, who actually lost his balance for a moment before catching himself. White-hot agony flared and for a moment, John thought he was going to lose his balance and topple off the scaffolding. Moran had kicked him hard where he’d been hurt, and John could feel the healing, fragile skin tear in protest. “Stand _up!_ ”  
  
Everything tilted crazily as John clambered painfully to his feet. The jolt of agony had cleared his head somewhat, caused him to focus. He heard commotion from on the floor by the pool and had to force himself not to flinch towards his gun. The barrel of Moran’s weapon was no longer pressed against John’s head as he gained his feet, eyes downcast. Instead Moran had turned it on Sherlock.  
  
He heard Sherlock make another low sound when Moran tossed the zip tie to John. “Come on now, time is wasting. Attach yourself to that pole there; one wrist should be fine. No, your dominant hand. Come on, come on. Good. Now make sure it’s ti--” Moran kicked out at him again. “Unflex your wrist and tighten the fucking thing, Watson!” John did, seeing no choice. The floaty feeling had all but dissipated, leaving utter dread in its wake. Without thinking, John had effectively immobilized himself with his arm in front of his body in such a way that he had to twist painfully to still be able to see Sherlock. Stupid, _stupid!_ The muscles in his shoulder stretched and burned, tendons and ligaments spasming painfully. Terror left a sour taste in his mouth.  
  
“Now. Sherlock. You have exactly two choices. In a moment, that ringtone is going to go off once again. You will make the decision- either you open it and I shoot your little pet here, or you give him the envelope so that he opens the trunk, and I shoot you. If you refuse, of course, the last thing you see of Johnny here is the blood spray when I put a bullet in his brain. Decide before the tone stops, Sherlock. Either way, big brother is going to find quite the mess when he arrives.”  
  
“This is to get Mycroft.”  
  
Moran snorted. John jerked his shocked gaze up to Moran, but before he could say anything Sherlock stood, baring his shoulders. “Of _course_ it’s to get to Mycroft.” His smile turned nasty.  
  
“Sherlo--”  
  
The ringtone went off.  
  
John cut off what he was saying so quickly that he bit his own tongue. John watched as Sherlock stood frozen in indecision, eyes darting around the pool for the briefest of seconds before settling on John’s. He was utterly floored to see that Sherlock’s eyes were wet with the shimmer of unshed tears. He watched Sherlock swallow so hard his Adam’s apple bobbed. Sherlock’s lips trembled once before he turned and began furiously working at the combination lock.  
  
“Sherlock don’t you fucking---” John mangled  the sentence before Sherlock had the lock undone. He heard Moran start to laugh, heard the two _clicks_ as the trunk’s fastenings sprung up, and couldn’t help the scream ripping from his throat as everything exploded.  
  
To his later shame, it took John what felt like several minutes to react. He clearly saw the force of the flashbomb cause Sherlock to stagger backwards, and the shape of something flying through the air, burying itself in Sherlock’s body. Already off-balance from the shock of the explosion almost directly in his face, Sherlock fell in what, to John, seemed like painfully slow motion, arcing off the scaffolding and into the pool. Once Sherlock landed, everything sped up to real time. Sherlock’s limbs sprawled helplessly onto the plastic warming cover of the pool. The splash of water geysered as the force of Sherlock’s landing drove him down to the bottom of the pool, water weighing the top of the plastic down so that Sherlock was wrapped in it, trapped under several feet of water. John didn’t even realize he was trying to jump after him until the sharp edges of the zip tie cut into the meat of his wrist.  
  
Moran was actually hunched over, still chuckling, as though John had told him a joke with a mildly amusing punchline. “It wouldn’t be fair if you didn’t have a choice too, Johnny!” The _snick_ of a switchblade caused all of John’s attention to focus on the gleam of the blade. “Either I escape into the ether, and drop this for you, orrrrrr....”  
  
Later, John could not coherently say what Moran had offered. His long-dormant instinct had his weapon back in his hand, firing before Moran could finish his taunt. There had not even been enough time for Moran’s face to register shock before the neat little bullet hole sent Moran to his knees before careening sideways off the scaffolding, landing with a broken-sounded clatter on the spectator seats below them.  
  
Desperately John cast about for the switchblade and saw it gleaming, caught precariously against one of the paint cans, acutely aware that the thrashing sounds from the pool were slowing down. John felt the plastic cut into his wrist again, blood making the surface slippery as he reached for it, just barely grabbing the end with his searching fingertips. Panic was clawing at his mind as John began counting in his head, cutting himself free with a small grunt of pain.  
  
Now that John could see, his heart plummeted into his gut. The cover had moved with the force of Sherlock’s landing _still, it was still, it wasn’t fucking **moving**_ so that it would not be possible for John to dive into the water without becoming wrapped in the deathly plastic himself. John scrambled down the ladder and sprinted for the pool, knowing he was too late but unable to make himself stop.  
  
There was another explosion to his left and the sound of shouting but John didn’t spare either a glance before was plunging into the water, slicing at the plastic with the knife. He saw the bloom of crimson as Sherlock bled out into the water and refused to stop, the counting in his brain reaching red, terrifying digits like a furnace whose indicator had gone to the danger zone. John finally was able to plunge underwater and free Sherlock from the plastic, but the small switchblade had not been able to do its job quickly enough to help Sherlock. His face was pale; eyes open and dull as John sliced the plastic away from him, pushing up from the bottom of the pool so they both broke the surface. John gasped oxygen in two great gulps, only to lose it as he almost went back under. Sherlock was _crushingly_ heavy, and John almost lost his grip twice as he struggled to get them to the edge of the pool.  
  
There was no time for this!  
  
John fought the hands that reached down to him when they pulled Sherlock’s body from the water, instinct warring with common sense before he let him go. John pulled himself from the water and pushed the black-clothed person out of the way, already moving to start rescue breathing. He had to work around the large bolt in Sherlock’s shoulder. Dimly, he became aware that Anthea fell to her knees beside him, taking Sherlock’s wrist and feeling for a pulse, still bleeding freely from a gash in her temple, contusions already blooming on the side of her face.Thirty chest compressions-- and the irony of the fact that John was pressing to the mental tune of ‘Stayin’ Alive was not lost on him--, check breathing. Tilt. Airway. Breath. Breath. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press. Press...  
  
The swirling mass of chaos around him seemed far away as John worked, pushing out all doubt. Time was meaningless. All his focus was on Sherlock’s unresponsive chest, his cold, clammy lips.  
  
The wet cough and gurgle was the sweetest sound John had ever heard. John moved back, turning Sherlock on his side as he coughed and wheezed, vomiting up water and bile. John knew that he was clutching Sherlock’s shirt, that he was still in shock by the way he suddenly became aware of Mycroft staring at the both of them, eyes narrowed. John dropped his forehead to Sherlock’s, heart still thundering with reaction. His eyes burned, so he shut them, just breathing for a moment. John felt the cool slide of Sherlock’s cold fingers on his cheek and his eyes fluttered open, moving away just a little so that he could meet Sherlock’s gaze with his own.  
  
“Juh- _John._ ”  
  
*****

 

TBC

Okay yeah the formatting is a bit farked up? I'm not exactly sure why. If you see something I missed, please let me know.  Final chapter/Epilogue up by Wednesday!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Specifics for this chapter are: Angst, discussion of suicide, PTSD, Drowning, medically but TEMPORARY character death, mind fuckery, and overly dramatic bad guys.


	9. Chapter 9

**A/N:  I completely imagined the bathtub. I don’t know that we’ve ever seen it, but in case we have and what I described is different just call it creative license and go on with your day.  There is also an obscene amount of cuddling and sex in this(these) chapter(s).**

**Also- note that I had to break this monster chapter into two separate sections, so if you’re wondering what the hell is going on, go back and read the previous chapter. :)**

* * *

 

* * *

 

**Now**

Over the course of his life, Sherlock had woken up in hospital a number of times. Once when he was a child, details deleted.  Twice when he had overdosed, details also deleted. Once after he’d met John, details kept in their own section of the Mind Palace so that he would never forget the look and feel of John’s sympathy. Sherlock felt the throb of a headache behind his closed eyelids as well as something deeply unpleasant in his shoulder, instantly decided that his ribs were best not dwelled upon, and oddly, he needed the toilet rather desperately. Cautiously, he opened his eyes, and seeing no one about slowly sat up and swung his legs down onto the floor. Oh, bollocks. That _hurt_. His entire body, especially his chest, felt like one giant contusion.

John wasn’t here.

He tried to tell himself that it didn’t hurt; a much more painful soreness than either his ribs or his shoulder- or even his bladder. He wasn’t particularly successful.

Sherlock removed the pulse monitor, grabbed his IV and slowly stood, ignoring the rolling nausea in his abdomen.  The wheel on the portable IV squeaked as he made his way to the loo, fumbled in his pajamas- he could feel stitches pulling in his shoulder, and relieved himself for what felt like an age, leaning his good shoulder slightly against the cool tile of the wall as he did so.

He washed his hands and made his slow, plodding way back to his bed. A nurse, no doubt called to his room because of the pulse monitor, was waiting for him. Sherlock ignored her and gingerly sat back down again, rolling his eyes when she fussed around him.

John was still not here. _Why_ wasn't John there?

Sherlock swallowed hard, refusing to deduce the obvious and lay back, assuming his customary thinking pose. His brain felt hollow, as though some of his cerebral cortex had been scooped out. Sherlock found it quite difficult to concentrate. He shut his eyes, falling back asleep before his thoughts fell into any sort of order.

 

*****

Sherlock could tell that he was alone, and frankly saw no reason to open his eyes to confirm this. Petulant or not, he refused to continue if John was not there with him and absolutely refused to entertain the thought that John's absence was anything less than temporary.

His Mind Palace was far better company than reality. There was quite a lot to catalogue, to file away. He began sorting, putting images and details into piles, flicking through them as though through pages in a novel, fingers twitching slightly as he thought. Sherlock could put away his shame and embarrassment at the knowledge that Moran had been more clever than him, had planned his scheme with such dedication and brilliance that he had not only completely fooled Sherlock, but he had fooled _Mycroft_.

But... no.

 _No one_ fooled Mycroft. It was _unthinkable_ to believe that some lackey of Moriarty’s had outwitted his brother. But. But that would mean---

The realization caused Sherlock to jerk in place, almost jarred from his palace at the shock. Sherlock felt his shoulder give a warning twinge as he flicked through thoughts, going back over the events of that night--- no. Earlier than that. Moriarty. Get Sherlock. Honey you should see me in a crown. Failsafe. _Falling_.  Mycroft’s almost casual mention of observation. I _rene_.

Sherlock could not have said how long it was before soft squeak of expensive Italian leather on the floor alerted him that he was no longer alone. As though it were a catalyst,  rage surged through him so powerfully he gasped a little in reaction, all at once so furious he was not entirely sure that he would be able to hide his reaction. Sherlock could almost _see_ the pieces slated to fall into place... stacked precariously on the precipice of something, some knowledge so vast that....

Sherlock’s eyes flew open.

The private room no longer seemed spacious. Mycroft stood behind a small visitor’s chair, half in shadow, posture deceptively casual as he stared impassively down on Sherlock like some bird of prey. Sherlock couldn’t keep the knowledge off his face. He wanted to spring up and punch Mycroft, to feel his own knuckles tear open, to mark his brother’s face and know that it was _his_ rage that had put it there.

“Ah.”  Mycroft moved slightly into the light. Sherlock could see the large contusion that covered Mycroft’s eye and part of his cheek.  It was recent enough that the skin was still puffy, the outer edges an angry looking violet as the broken skin vessels bled underneath the skin.

It was a _whopping_ shiner. It was _brilliant_.

“As you no doubt have guessed, your doctor has already expressed his feelings in the matter of my involvement. Unfortunately, he chose to do this in front of several of her Majesty's finest.” Mycroft paused, his lips tightening with the slightest movement. “Regrettably, he has been detained.” Mycroft pulled out a pocket watch and checked the time. “However, that matter will be cleared up soon enough and your happy reunion will no doubt commence.” Mycroft shifted so that the shadow hid his face again and Sherlock was struck by the fact that Mycroft did not have to show this weakness, nor was he obligated to provide Sherlock any explanation as to why John was not with Sherlock when he awoke in hospital.

It was a gesture so utterly out of character that Sherlock was floored. Was he being manipulated again? Why couldn’t he tell?

He huffed out a quick breath of frustration at his own ineptitude and responded to Mycroft by closing his eyes, effectively ignoring his brother- unless Mycroft wished to speak. It was slightly less simple to ignore the soft sound of Mycroft sitting down and instead recreated the rather lovely image Mycroft had painted with his words. John, furious. John’s mouth would be a thin line, his face all but blank, eyes staring with a deep intensity. _That_ was when Sherlock knew John was at his most angry. Then... a twitch of his eyelid. A muscle clenching and relaxing in his jaw before his fist rose.  

Sherlock may have daydreamed a time or two about punching the smug off Mycroft’s jaw. It brought him no less pleasure to know that John had done so, instead. He settled back in the bed, staring up at the ceiling, knowing that there was a faint smile on his lips that he had absolutely no intention of stifling.

It was some time later that Sherlock heard the telltale buzz of Mycroft’s mobile, and the sound of the bastard shifting in his chair to check his phone. Sherlock was still furious enough to ignore him, but a step in the hallway caught his attention. Had he been thinking clearly, he could have prepared himself for the crushing disappointment of seeing Anthea instead of John. At the very least he could have better masked it.

“Ah.” Sherlock l _oathed_ the sound of Mycroft’s oily, smug voice.  “Well, it does appear as though Dr. Watson bypassed the happy reunion to... oh dear. That _is_  unfortunate.” Anthea brought Sherlock a small bag. The click of her heels was loud as she placed it on Sherlock’s legs, gave her employer a frosty look that even Sherlock had no trouble interpreting, and left without a sound. “He appears to be... packing, Sherlock.”

Sherlock closed his eyes, shocked at feeling of acute pain in his solar plexus at Mycroft’s gentle words. He allowed it for one moment before sucking in a gasp of oxygen and forcing the   _sentiment_  away. Instead he chivvied himself to sit up, discounting the way things tilted crazily and the low roll of nausea in his gut. He could ignore his brother as he slowly stripped, reaching into the bag and finding new pants. It took some work to bend his body correctly so that he could maneuver his feet into them, pulling them up with one hand when the muscles in his shoulder informed him in no uncertain terms that this action was a bit too ambitious. It became calming, this simple act of dressing himself, his intense focus lasered on socks, the ancient pair of jeans he’d had with him at the safehouse when he had got groceries. Anthea had given him one of his t-shirts, and Sherlock was grateful for her foresight when he gingerly eased the stretchy material over his arms, his head and shoulders and down his torso. When he was done, Sherlock sat there to take stock of his injuries.

Careful non-thinking kept him numb enough to not react when Mycroft’s hand swam into focus holding two tablets and a glass of water in front of him. He took both and swallowed them, ignoring the annoyed squawk of the nurse and Mycroft’s smooth tones as Sherlock stood, fully dressed. He rummaged in the bag and saw Anthea had left him a mobile and twenty quid inside one of the trainers. Sherlock took both and pushed them in his pocket, and dumped the canvas trainers on the floor so that he could shove his feet into them.  There were no laces, and Sherlock was once again pleased at Anthea’s foresight, even if her sense of humour at the style of shoe left rather a lot to be desired. Sherlock had certainly never before worn something so... colorful on his feet. Even when he was _high._

He left the hospital room without speaking. He didn’t particularly want to think, either. Well, that was patently untrue. Sherlock did not want to _remember_ .  But he could. Oh, yes.

The cool London air was like a slap to the face, and Sherlock shivered a little in the thin cotton shirt before sliding into the back of the cab. Sitting still made his body throb like a sore tooth. He remembered falling onto the plastic, and fighting it. Based on the bruising pattern glimpsed in the mirror of the tiny hospital loo, John must have performed CPR once he drowned. Sherlock’s mind shied away from remembering and with a little concentration he found he could recapture that numb sense from before.  

“Where to, guv?” The cabbie’s voice was bored. Sherlock didn’t even bother to deduce her. He didn’t care.

“221 Baker Street.”

Sherlock closed his eyes at the wave of pathetic gratitude that rolled over him at simply saying the words. He had not been there in so long. Even seeing the worn furniture and chaotic jumble of his and John’s life through the cameras had not done it justice, and Sherlock was floored, and a little grateful, at the feeling of homesickness.  He had never felt that particular longing for a mere place before, yet had no trouble categorising and identifying the feeling.  

Sherlock only opened his eyes once to gauge where they were before shutting them again, the grid of streets from Paddington to Baker Street. Sherlock had not been at Bart’s, and he wondered for a moment why Mycroft would have had him installed in a less-familiar hospital.

Before he could answer his own question, the driver pulled up to the kerb. It had started to rain, and Sherlock forced himself to take a deep, calming breath before paying the cabbie and sliding out of the cab.  The cooler air made Sherlock hunch his shoulders in an instinctive need for protection before he looked and crossed Baker Street to the familiar door only to be stymied by the solid barrier. Rain dripped down onto his hair, sliding like icicles down the collar of the shirt.

He had no keys.

It was such a _stupid_ thing.  He had been gone for so long and thought of his flat with such detail, but his fantasies had always been with he and John drinking tea in their chairs or watching crap telly on Sherlock’s couch. He had never thought about the particulars of money for cabs and keys to his door. From there to here was full of particulars that Sherlock should have planned for. He truly was unforgivably stupid sometimes.

Sherlock debated on whether to knock or just go right inside. He was actually reaching out for the knocker when the door flew open. Sherlock froze at seeing Mrs. Hudson’s red-rimmed eyes and quivering bottom lip. He was stuck by a feeling he could not name; something at once so wretched and so wonderful that he did not know how to react. The numbness receded as his throat tightened painfully, the burn of tears causing Sherlock to blink rapidly. He stooped slightly, bringing his arms up for a hug, Adam’s apple bobbing as he swallowed.

Sherlock was utterly unprepared for the sharp slap of the palm of Mrs. Hudson’s hand against his cheek. His head rocked back with the surprise of it and Sherlock brought his own hand up to cover his cheek protectively, staring stupidly down at her. His other hand caught his weight against the door frame, keeping from spilling out on his arse onto the wet steps.

“You _idiot_ man. Do you have _any_ idea what you put him through?!”

Despite the violence of the slap, her words were not furious, but instead a mix of deeply wounded and desperately disappointed.  That somehow made it worse. Sherlock felt the tightening in his throat grow to almost unbearable lengths, but it wasn’t until Mrs. Hudson stepped forward to wrap her bony arms around him and pull him tightly to her that he felt he could breathe again, sucking in the slightly stale Chanel No5 almost gratefully.

“Oh, _Sherlock_.”

He could hear the catch in her voice and shut his eyes. The numbness was a memory and Sherlock felt as though he was trembling on the precipice of something utterly ghastly; a shameful wave of emotion that would break him up and push him to the ground. He heard the sound he made and tightened his arms around her slight frame, inexplicably grateful that she was here.

The squeak on the top stair caused his eyes to pop open, his head whipping up. John stood there with his hand on the railing. Sherlock blinked and took in the sight of him, eyes darting from John’s feet to his head in a heartbeat. His feet were bare, something that would only occur once John had woken up. Otherwise his feet were always encased in trainers, or loafers, or slippers. His jeans were the same from before, creases in the denim fairly shouting that John had napped for rather a long time. There was a tea stain next to the cuff of his shirt. The hand on the railing had two bruised knuckles. Nervousness or clumsiness? Sherlock could not tell. John’s face looked as though he had left exhaustion behind several hours ago. The normally clear eyes were dull with utter weariness. Ah. Not napping then. lying still in the same position for hours. Tired. Worried.

Sherlock must have made another sound, because Mrs. Hudson stepped back and dabbed at her eyes with the tiny wisp of a rather useless-looking handkerchief.  “I’ve just put the kettle on. Come on inside then.”

Sherlock could not possibly move until John began walking, watching him move silently down the steps and into Mrs. Hudson’s flat without a word.He was uncomfortably aware that he was standing there like a great berk, clutching his reddened cheek and trying desperately not to react incorrectly, other arm still hanging in the air from Mrs. Hudson’s hug. This was so far out of his area as to be a caricature of human experience.  Sherlock shut his eyes again and forced himself to follow. The tablets Mycroft had given him were making him faintly nauseated, and he knew that Mrs. Hudson would have at the very least some biscuits to go with their tea.

Sherlock followed John and Mrs. Hudson, everything still feeling strangely surreal. He wasn’t high, and hadn’t been for ages, or he would think this was some kind of hallucination. His shoes left odd markings on Mrs. Hudson’s floor, wet swirls and patterns that Sherlock couldn’t help but focus on.

“That smells lovely, Mrs. H.”  John’s quiet voice hit Sherlock like another blow to the ribs. He shivered with reaction. Sherlock became aware that the smell of roast chicken was making his mouth water. His stomach made a hopeful gurgle and he rubbed it absently.  

“Sit.” Mrs. Hudson pointed and Sherlock and John both sat in their normal spots. Prior to him... leaving, and when there wasn’t a case on, Sunday dinner with Mrs. Hudson had become a rather nice habit. John would bustle and insist that he needed food to power that ‘great sodding lump in his skull’, and Sherlock would protest just enough to get a reaction from his flatmate before going and eating the perfectly cooked dinner Mrs. Hudson made.

John kept his gaze on the table in front of him, and Sherlock  tried not to care as Mrs. Hudson dished up their food with rather a lot more slamming and crashing than she usually used.

“I’m sorry.” The words were out before Sherlock could think about what his mouth was doing.

Mrs. Hudson paused with a startled gasp, then set the chicken down much more gently on the table. Sherlock forced himself to watch her blink away tears. When she spoke, her voice warbled. “Now you two eat up, and we can talk after. You both look completely knackered.”

To give himself something to do, Sherlock took a bite of chicken, then another. Sherlock soon found that he was practically inhaling his food. He helped himself to seconds before realizing that both John and Mrs. Hudson were staring at him with almost identical smirks on their faces.  Sherlock flushed so deeply even his ears got hot with embarrassment.  He finished his bite almost primly, wiping his mouth with a slightly embellished flourish.

The silence was split only by the sounds of cutlery onto plates. It was a testament to how many things had changed that Sherlock felt a need to fill the silence.

“Well, Mrs. Hudson, you’ll be pleased to know that your flat will soon be empty again.”

Sherlock thought that it was the very least that he could do. John would no doubt be feeling guilty for needing to leave 221B.  Given that Mrs. Hudson’s anger was directed at Sherlock’s ... absence, and not John for leaving, it was obvious that John had not yet told her that he was moving. Sherlock was not entirely certain where this sudden streak of altruism came from. Knowing John, he had rushed to pack before Sherlock was released from hospital, in order to avoid anything... awkward. As much as the truth of his words hurt, Sherlock tried to keep his voice pleasant. His smile felt rubbery and false.

Mrs. Hudson’s eyes grew wide. Sherlock found that it would be much too painful for him to meet John’s gaze, so he stared at the table. The delicious food suddenly tasted like dust in his mouth. He put his fork down very carefully, feeling the smile slide off his face.

“You’re moving?” John’s voice was so mangled that at first, Sherlock couldn’t quite understand what he was saying. Sherlock swallowed and forced himself to look John in the eyes for the first time since they sat down together.

John’s face was completely blank, but his eyes looked utterly furious.

“Well...”  Sherlock blinked several times, utterly confused. He spoke slowly, the words just as painful as the knowledge. “Mycroft wasted no time in informing me that you were packing, so I...” He trailed off, several things clicking into place at once. Sherlock realized his mouth had dropped open in shock. Somewhat belatedly, he shut it with a small _click._

“That utter fucking _bastard_.” John’s voice was tight. Angry.

Sherlock’s new mobile pinged with a text.  Sherlock blinked rapidly down at the picture file, feeling his face turn so red that he was actually lightheaded for a moment. It made his previous blush look like nothing. It was a copy of his own test results, showing that he was negative for all STIs. Another ping, and John’s records showed up with the message _‘I hope you and your doctor find this information useful. Be well, brother.’_ His skin felt too warm for his face.

“Dear God,” was all he could manage. He quickly put his phone away. Sherlock fought the urge to look around for whatever cameras Mycroft had installed in Mrs. Hudson’s kitchen, knowing that Mycroft was likely recording his reaction for playback at all future arguments.  He reached out with shaking fingers for his water glass and took a gulp.

“Sherlock.”  The two syllables in John’s commanding voice made Sherlock gasp, choking on the water he’d just swallowed.

“For heaven’s _sake_ , Sherlock!” Mrs. Hudson slapped him on the back, something that absolutely did nothing to quell his coughing, but it allowed him to use the time to attempt to order his whirling thoughts.  Sherlock immediately took another sip of water, noticing that John was struggling to keep from lashing out verbally in his fury- no doubt due to Mrs. Hudson’s presence.

Almost before he was finished drinking, Sherlock began speaking.  “Mycroft...! He. I.” Sherlock jumped to his feet, ignoring the jar of his ribs at the abrupt movement. “There was no possible way that Moran had replaced those workers, that he could have possibly managed to outsmart my brother. Someone like myself, Moriarty _perhaps_ , but not a common idiot such as him.” The words started off shaky, then started tumbling out one after the other like a pot of water boiling over. “Moran insisted that everything was in reaction to him. Pawns moving against the king on the chessboard. But my brother.... it was his idea for my Fall. He fed the information to Moriarty to get him on the rooftop. He had anticipated the snipers, but not how many there would be, so there were several different possibilities, all planned out with meticulous detail. I knew that there would be some smoke and mirrors, John, but not which trick we would use.” He whirled, almost giddy at the feeling of everything slotting into place in his mind; his long, disused synapses firing into place at long last. “Mycroft must have told you part of the plan. A mere whisper of his machinations for you to volunteer as bait. He knew. He _knew_ that Moran would not be drawn out for anything less, and to do that I needed to be on scene. Mycroft knew that I would be watching. Why would I be watching? Simple. Sentiment. Ridiculous and tiresome but I am not as infallible as I wished. Write that down in your blog John, I’m sure you’ll enjoy my confirmation.”

Sherlock couldn’t help the small bite of pleasure he felt at how uncomfortable John looked at his words. Mrs. Hudson was staring at him with wide, confused eyes, poised to drink her tea but frozen in shock at his outburst. Sherlock whirled and began pacing again, muttering under his breath. When he came close enough to John for the doctor to grab his wrist, Sherlock froze and sank into his chair on legs that were completely useless. He began again, staring as John’s calloused, tanned fingers tightened around his pale wrist.

“My damnable brother needed both of us to draw out Moran... the last player in Moriarty’s web. Perhaps the kidnapping was not part of his plan-” John snorted and Sherlock couldn’t help the way his eyes jumped up to John’s before focusing back on John’s strong fingers. “-but it _did_ show him that he would have to up the stakes if he wanted to catch him.” Sherlock’s voice bottomed out as John tilted up his chin, looking over his face with that clear gaze of his that missed nothing.

Minutes, possibly hours, later Mrs. Hudson coughed and set down her teacup with a clatter. “Well I’m sure I don’t know about all of this, boys, but I do know you both look exhausted. Sherlock, you just got out of hospital. Shouldn’t you rest, dear?”

Sherlock blinked. He could see that John had several questions, but it would perhaps be prudent to answer them out of their landlady’s hearing.

“You’re not.. leaving?” Sherlock forced himself not to wince at the feeble break in his voice. He knew the answer, understood what Mycroft had done, but found he still craved John’s response.

“No, Sherlock. I’m not going anywhere.”

*******

John knew that compared to Sherlock, he was not overly intelligent. Usually he didn’t dwell on this. Sherlock was a proper genius, but he was also spectacularly moronic about certain aspects of humanity. It was just one of the many things that worked for the both of them, that John happened to excel in the aspects of life where Sherlock found himself lacking. A weird sort of karmic balance. Now, as he followed a obviously exhausted Sherlock up the stairs to their flat, John could see as clearly as Sherlock’s deductions came to him. The signs weren’t obvious, but John was a trained medical professional, and he well recognized the signs of someone attempting to hide the signs of acute pain. It was there in the white-knuckled grip on the banister, the shuffled half-step as Sherlock tried not to aggravate the muscles in his lower back- hurt either from the residual trauma of the CPR or the force of the landing onto the pool cover. It was there in the slight gasping wheeze as Sherlock struggled with breathing, the hunch of the shoulders. Sherlock’s shirt had dried from the outside deluge in the time that they ate supper, but John could see the slight sheen of sweat on his neck as he struggled not to show how hurt he was.

It made him grit his teeth wishing that things had unfolded differently. It still seemed a bit like a dream: Sherlock's uncharacteristic meekness, the moment of epiphany that had Sherlock cursing Mycroft for reasons that John wasn't entirely certain he followed, and this... a hurt, exhausted Sherlock stoically attempting to hide his pain from John. No. _No_ , sir. That was just not on.

And what had that bit about him moving meant? John shook his head when Sherlock paused on the threshold,  sucking in a startled gasp of air.

John, as soon as being released from Mycroft's super secret spy jail, which John was not entirely convinced was not a set from one of the lesser known Bond films, had rushed over to 221B, after being told in no uncertain terms that he’d have a hell of a lot more than an ASBO if he showed up at Sherlock’s room in the hospital. John had rushed about a bit frantically, setting up all of Sherlock’s things so that their flat would look right for when Sherlock got home. The text from Anthea that there were a few surgical complications, and that Sherlock wouldn’t be home for _five whole days_ had left John with nothing to occupy his time. He’d stretched out on the settee and lost himself in his thoughts, going over and over everything that had happened. He’d shopped. Cleaned.

Slept a great deal.

Now, John touched Sherlock’s lower back, jerking his fingers away when Sherlock stiffened and flinched away from him.

“Sorry... I. Sorry.”  John winced in response.

Sherlock’s shoulders hunched in on himself even more. It gave John a sense of purpose.  Whatever he had thought might happen when Sherlock returned, first he needed to rest and recuperate.

“No. It’s fine, Sherlock.” John gave a tired smile. “It’s all fine.”

Sherlock didn’t even respond to that. John tried to tell himself that it didn’t matter, that Sherlock was just exhausted, but he couldn’t help the small frisson of panic that trickled down his spine. Sherlock was acting as closed-off and inhuman as he’d done when they’d first met- before they had got to know each other.  John fell back onto his Doctor persona and attempted to push down the personal drama to deal with later. _Much_ later.

John crossed so that he was in front of Sherlock. He made his voice gentle, but not patronizing.  “Sherlock.” Sherlock took a few minutes before he seemed to focus on John’s face, he blinked slowly, as though he wasn’t entirely there. “Hey. Come with me. Let’s get you settled, yeah?”

Sherlock nodded, silent and suddenly pliable, as though he lacked the energy to argue.  It made the doctor in John take notice- from the almost manic deductions from before to this strangeness... clearly whatever he had been given at the hospital had kicked in. John made a mental note to text Mycroft for the details as soon as he was able. He let John lead him to his room, not even responding when John helped him strip off the t-shirt. No bandages around his ribs. That more than anything told John that Sherlock must have been sedated in hospital. They hadn’t been broken, obviously, thank Christ. John had the quick thought that a bath might be more relaxing and went to start the water, firing off a quick text to Anthea requesting Sherlock’s medical file. When he came back to Sherlock’s room, he was still standing there, staring down at the floor.

“Sherlock..? Do you want.... I mean, if you don’t want me fussing then I’ll leave it--”

Sherlock’s hand whipped out, grabbing John’s wrist; a reflexive movement that mirrored John’s actions from before. “No.”

Well that was clear enough.

“Alright then, Sherlock. It’s alright.”  John’s voice gentled. Keeping his movements brisk and impersonal, he helped Sherlock to take off the jeans and the truly appalling shoes.They looked like something a teenager would wear.  Sherlock didn’t protest when John led him to the bath, simply pushing down his pants with a grunt of pain and hissing when he slid into the steamy water.

John had always liked their bath. Mrs. Hudson, as with so much in the old house, had kept the Victorian clawfoot tub, and it was probably the only thing large enough to fit Sherlock’s great gangly body. Mrs. H. had made noises about updating the bath to something more modern, but neither of them wanted to get rid of it.  John stood up, wincing at the crack of his knees and started to leave, only to be stopped once again by Sherlock’s large fingers locking around his wrist.

Sherlock didn’t speak this time, but just turned his neck to stare at John. His look was slightly less blank, but John had no problems diagnosing that Sherlock was probably quite likely in  shock. Even more likely was that Mycroft insisted on Sherlock's attending physician doping Sherlock up to his eyeballs to keep him still and healing.  Being home after everything that had happened, with being so exhausted on top of it would do in anyone’s head. Even genius consulting detectives.

“I’m not leaving for long, love. I just have a few things to take care of. Ten minutes, tops.”

Sherlock’s lips twitched down in a frown, but he let go of John’s wrist. John winced inwardly at the unwitting endearment, relieved that Sherlock didn’t appear to have noticed his slip of the tongue.  “Just sit tight. Be back in a tick.”

John got two towels and set them on the radiator to warm. He set his phone on the end table near Sherlock’s bed and quickly wrestled his chair into the corner of Sherlock’s bedroom, fully expecting a long night. Sherlock’s bed had already been made with fresh linens, so that was one thing done at least. He grabbed his duvet cover from his own bed and his laptop and charger and set it on his chair. John went into the kitchen and filled the kettle, flicking it on with a little frown. He had the impression that he was no better than Sherlock, pushing away little things (and not so little things such as Sherlock dying thanks ever so) until he was at a place where he felt strong enough to deal with them. John heard his phone ping twice and frowned, listening.

Sherlock still hadn’t moved in the water. There were no sounds of scrubbing or splashing. John pinched the top of his nose and made his way back to the bathroom, snagging his doctor’s bag on the way. Sherlock’s ribs would would likely need to be bandaged. They hadn’t wrapped Sherlock’s ribs (or Sherlock had refused to wear the bandage), but John felt that it wouldn’t hurt, given the situation. John stumbled as the visceral memory of pressing Sherlock’s chest, staring down at the pale, blank face _that had left him again_ hit him and caught his hand on the door’s frame, barely saving himself from falling forward.

Maybe Sherlock wasn’t the only one who had some things to think through. Sherlock looked up at John’s entrance, lips quirking an something between an exhausted smirk and a feeble smile. “Hello.”

“Hi. You want to soak a little longer?”

“Not particularly. I am... tired.”

John’s eyebrows sprung up in surprise. For Sherlock to admit weakness was practically unheard of.

"Right. Just a quick scrub, then." Sherlock didn't stop him, but didn't exactly help him either. Instead, as John briskly rubbed him down with the flannel,  Sherlock gazed almost unblinkingly at the taps.  John felt like an unprofessional arse for biting the inside of his cheek when he washed Sherlock's penis and testicles and lower, but was left strangely cold when Sherlock's unblinking stare didn't waver.

John finished his task, draped the flannel over the tap and pulled the plug. He found himself leaning forward and kissing Sherlock’s forehead before rocking back on his heels and helping him to stand, but Sherlock didn’t say anything.  John got the two warmed towels and wrapped Sherlock’s weird hair in one and attempted to fit Sherlock's long torso in the other. It didn’t take long to dry him off, even being overly careful of Sherlock’s injuries.  Sherlock remained completely unresponsive, even when John began rubbing briskly enough at his drippy hair that Sherlock looked like a bewildered porcupine with the ginger strands poofing out in every direction at once.

John turned and Sherlock’s hand was on his wrist again before he could move. Beginning to get a bit worried now, John used the grip to tow Sherlock into his bedroom and help him into a pair of pants.

“I need that back eventually, you know.” John tried for levity, nodding down at his captured wrist.

“No.”  

John jerked his gaze up, only to see that Sherlock was frowning over at John’s chair. “Sherlock, I need to look over your injuries. Wrap your ribs. I will need my--”

“ _No._ ”  Sherlock didn’t sound petulant or angry, but his grip tightened slightly on John’s wrist.  Sherlock turned to get into the bed, pulling John with him.

“Sherlock,” John didn’t bother to hide the chiding tone of his voice as he leaned back, resisting. “I’m going to wrap your ribs, even if for my own peace of mind. If you want me to lie down with you, that’s fine but I will need to tidy up a few things first.”

Sherlock made a frustrated sound, sitting instead on the edge of the bed. His fingers loosened and it galvanized John into action. He took the towels down into the utility room, locking the door to the flat on his way back up. John flicked off the kettle and instead grabbed a bottle of water from the refrigerator. John made his way upstairs, found something to sleep in, used the loo, washed his hands and debated whether or not to brush his teeth. Deciding that he’d been gone too long (as Sherlock’s patience was not exactly endless) he chose to make his way to Sherlock’s bedroom instead, as apparently Himself had decided John was sleeping there.  John didn’t even bother to try to tell himself he wasn’t completely chuffed by this entire turn of events.

The room had got much gloomier. The rain had not abated. John switched on a lamp. Sherlock had not moved from his perch on the side of the mattress, as though he was ready to spring up at the least bit of provocation.  John grabbed his bag and his phone and knelt down in front of Sherlock. His skin had broken out into tiny gooseflesh, despite the warm towels.  John was surprised to see that he had several texts. He flipped through the scanned copy of Sherlock’s medical chart that Anthena had sent him on his phone, ignoring the other texts. He checked quickly to see if what he planned on giving Sherlock would react with any of the meds prescribed by his physician, then reached into his bag for something a little stronger than Paracetamol.

Sherlock didn’t even hesitate, taking the two tablets with a swig of the water. John made quick but careful work of Sherlock’s ribs then pulled him up by both hands so that he could pull back the duvet cover and sheet.  “Come on then, you great lump.  Into bed.” Sherlock groaned in relief as he stretched out in his own bed and John turned away to get the light.

“John!” Sherlock cried out, then gasped in pain.

John turned, ignoring the panicked cry, all at once furious that Sherlock would jacknife up like that and allow himself to be reinjured.

“For fuck’s _sake_ , Sherlock. I’m just putting out the light!” John did so, then blinked a few times, wincing at his own temper. He turned to make certain that Sherlock had lain down and  was comfortable before crossing the room around the large bed and sliding underneath the covers. John didn’t miss Sherlock’s relieved sigh and felt even more like an arse for barking at him. He could almost feel Sherlock’s nervous tension from only a few inches away and rolled his eyes in the darkness.

“Come on then.”

Sherlock turned with a pained grunt and made himself comfortable so that his head was on John’s chest, his body contorted so that his healing ribs were not being pressed into the mattress, but so his legs tangled with John’s.  John brought his arm up, hugging Sherlock to him for a moment before relaxing his arm and cupping the back of Sherlock’s slightly damp curls.

Sherlock sighed and moved slightly closer, rubbing his cheek against the soft material of John’s vest, fisting his hand in the loose part of the shirt as though holding John right there, with him.

John didn’t bother to censor himself from tangling his fingers in Sherlock’s hair, rubbing at the scalp.  “Did you know that your roots are showing?”

Sherlock snorted inelegantly. “Hasn’t been a priority. But I will not miss seeing the ginger.A bit like seeing my father in the mirror each time.”

“Ah.” John tugged a little and Sherlock caught his breath. He resumed petting the curls, moving his hand down the nape of Sherlock’s neck to trail his fingers against the bumps of Sherlock’s spine, before reversing the path and completing the entire circuit again. Sherlock began to relax in increments. The rain was loud, hissing down with occasional vehicles spitting water back up onto the kerb.  It was surprisingly cosy here with Sherlock, listening to the sounds from the busy street.

Slowly, Sherlock spoke, as if unsure if he should.

“I was... unsettled at waking up in hospital and not having you there. I...”

“Hush.” John gave a little tug of Sherlock’s curls, ignoring the gasp. “I am so sorry that I wasn’t there for you. I think your brother was a bit narked, to tell the truth.” That reminded John that he’d had messages and he debated whether or not to turn to get his phone. He was bloody comfortable and not too keen on moving.

“His eye is viciously bruised- purple and a bit of green.” Sherlock didn’t even bother to hide his satisfaction at this from his voice and it was John’s turn to snort.

“Yes, well doing a stint in the subbasement of the Home Office- or wherever I was was a bit of a shock. If I had been able to do so I would have been there with you. They kept you sedated to heal, you know. That’s why you’re probably feeling a bit floaty and out of sorts.”

Sherlock nodded. “I know. I saw the stitching on my shoulder. At least five days healed, if not longer.”  John rolled his eyes at himself. Of _course_ even a hurt, exhausted Sherlock had been able to deduce that. Sherlock burrowed slightly closer to John, kicking slightly at the duvet so that his feet were uncovered.

John knew that they both were exhausted and on the verge of sleep, but he didn’t think he could relax until he had the answer to one question. He continued debating with himself on whether or not he should take a gamble and break the peace between them. And it was peaceful.  His hand on Sherlock’s scalp, the feel of the soft curls around his fingers, the heat of Sherlock’s skin on the back of his neck, down his spine and back up. Sherlock had relaxed to an extent that John was not sure he had ever observed before.

“Ask, John. You’ve become fractionally more tense as you debate whether or not to ask me whatever question has been stagnating in your mind.”

Fair enough. John took a deep breath. Despite Sherlock’s causal observation, John felt him tense fractionally in nervousness as he waited for John to speak.

“I ... I know that everything that happened happened rather quickly. But I assume that while you were in hospital you had time to process. That’s the only conclusion that. I mean, I can’t blame you if...” Oh bollocks. He was making a hash of this. Attempting to summon some of his alleged bravery, John just blurted out what had bothered him the most from their dinner with Mrs. Hudson. “Do you want me to move out?”

“No!” Sherlock’s hands tightened forcefully enough on John’s shirt that it seemed as though Sherlock was going to physically attempt to keep him in place.

“Then what was that all about earlier?” Again, John kept his voice gentle.  Deliberately, John began stroking Sherlock’s neck and shoulders again, down his spine as far as he could reach.

“Mycroft said that you were packing. To leave. I.” Sherlock turned so that his face was hidden, smashing his nose into John’s collarbone. His voice rumbled low and almost completely muffled. “After what I had done, I could not blame you. I... attempted to make things easier on you, since I thought you would feel conflicted.”

“But I wasn’t leaving.”

“I understand that _now_!” Sherlock’s head popped up, meeting John’s eyes in the dark room.  He huffed loudly enough that his fringe flipped over his eye. “My brother is an _arse_.”

John couldn’t argue with that. Sherlock dropped his head back onto John’s chest and not-so-subtly moved his leg so that John’s calf was trapped under its weight. John couldn’t help the sappy smile that stretched his mouth, and was very glad that Sherlock couldn’t see it.

“Maybe he wanted you to realize that I wasn’t going anywhere. Maybe that was his welcome home present.”

“John I think you might be confusing these ideas of altruism with someone who is not my brother.”

John snorted. “Maybe.”  For several more minutes there was just the sound of the rain and the occasional passing vehicle on Baker street.

“John?”

“Yes, Sherlock?”

“‘m glad you’re not leaving.”

John found himself relaxing slowly, felt Sherlock getting heavier as he slipped into sleep. Thunder rumbled in the distance. John heard his text alert one more time before he followed Sherlock into slumber, warm and comfortable.

 

(Next chapter to be posted tonight! My beta is just looking it over now!)


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Last chapter! Whoohoo!

****

“Hooo-ooo-- Sherlo--oh! _Boys_!”

Sherlock jumped at the sound of Mrs. Hudson’s voice, almost knocking his head against John’s jaw. His heart pounded in his chest. He’d been... dreaming. Something unpleasant. He was slightly sweaty and uncomfortably aware that his cheek was wet. Sherlock stared, slightly horrified, down at the large wet patch on John’s vest. John started to get up, but caught sight of Sherlock’s face and began laughing almost helplessly instead.

As Sherlock brought his hand up to his hair he could feel that it was standing on end from John’s fingers. John’s lovely, lovely fingers. He glared down at John, noticing the way he nose scrunched up in a smile, the laugh lines on his face. He was again experiencing an arrhythmia; the adrenaline morphing into something quite a bit different as he stared into John’s laughing face. Even with waking up in such an unexpected way, Sherlock could not possibly miss the way John instinctively curved his pelvis away from Sherlock to hide the heat and hardness of his morning erection.  It made Sherlock’s whole body clench with want, then cringe in confusion. If John wasn’t mentioning it (and Hudders’ timing could not have _been_ more abysmal) did that mean that Sherlock was not to acknowledge it either?

Mrs. Hudson clucked something about breakfast and made herself scarce, but Sherlock was too focused on John to pay her much notice.

“Sorry.But. I... I _did_ lock... the door to the flat,” John wheezed, bringing up his leg slightly. Sherlock felt adrift with sudden awkwardness and cast about, ignoring his hair as it bounced fluffily without the product he normally used to tame the wayward curls. He grabbed John’s phone to check the time.

Sherlock felt all this was all a bit much to handle first thing in -- _three in the afternoon_?! They had slept for... twenty hours.

He wanted tea. He wanted to go back to sleeping on John’s chest, to hearing his steady heartbeat chase him into slumber. He wanted to continue to watch John’s helpless laughter and pretend to be offended.

Sherlock allowed himself one extremely dignified sniff as he stood and went to use the loo. John actually sputtered with laughter behind him and Sherlock could not have kept the shy grin off his face if he had been paid to do so. John couldn’t see how absolutely delighted he felt to be the cause of John’s amusement- even with something as ridiculous as---

Holy _Christ_.

The smile drained off his face as Sherlock caught a glimpse of his reflection. He looked absolutely horrifying.  There was a small speck of white on his face from where his drool had dried, his eyes were gummy with too much sleep, and there was a red crease on his cheek that fairly shouted to anyone who cared to look that Sherlock had not even twitched away from John in the night.  His hair was worse than he had thought. He looked like Molly’s cat after a bath. It stuck up on one side of his head in several different directions, as though the curls couldn’t choose which way to fall, single-handed lie defying the laws of physics.

Ugh.

Sherlock jumped into the shower, reaching immediately for--. _Oh._  He blinked stupidly at the small bottles on the windowsill. Sherlock had not lived here in several months, yet John had brand new bottles of Sherlock’s favorite grooming products- his shampoo, his conditioner and even Sherlock’s  preferred brand of body wash. Had it been purchased it recently? Or had it been here since before his... fall?

Sherlock's mind felt strangely hollow as he showered. His body was not as sore as he expected, although he certainly felt it when he turned too quickly. He took the bandages off a little guiltily. John likely wouldn’t want him to get them wet, but mostly Sherlock wanted to see the damage he’d done to himself. The wound in his shoulder hurt quite a bit, but not nearly as bad as it had done. The healing skin was dreadfully itchy, and the muscles throbbed dully from where they healed. His ribs were not fractured, and the contusions that were there were healing, although they hurt when pressed.

The water felt heavenly, but Sherlock found to his surprise that he was hungry. He finished quickly, absolutely did _not_ spend ten minutes on his hair so that it looked properly tousled, then found clean pyjamas and an ancient shirt of John’s in which to dress.

Sherlock found John on his phone at the kitchen table, having served himself a huge portion of the late lunch Mrs. Hudson had no doubt brought them, frozen in place as he read through whatever was on his phone.

Sherlock remembered his reaction to receiving John’s test results and winced.

“Ah. Mycroft texted you then. Excellent. Questions? Is that coffee?” Sherlock sat down, carefully not making eye contact as John flailed a little in his haste to put his phone down with seeming nonchalance. Sherlock poured himself coffee and helped himself to some of the casserole. It was a very simple shepherd's pie that Sherlock would normally not hesitate to turn up his nose at, yet he found himself eating ravenously.

John was quiet in the way he was when he had quite a lot to ask, but did not want to forget anything. Sherlock chanced a glance at him over the rim of his coffee cup. While he showered, John had changed into jeans and a ratty looking RAMC t-shirt. It stretched delightfully across John’s chest and biceps and Sherlock found himself quite forgetting that he had a sip of coffee in his mouth until he tried to take another and it dribbled a little down his chin. He was being utterly _ridiculous_ this morning. Afternoon. Whatever.

“I said some things to you. Horrible things.”

Oh, how tedious. Sherlock froze mid-chew. Deliberately he finished his bite and spoke. “Deserved. You found out I was a drug-addicted sexual deviant. Reacted accordingly.” Sherlock paused. “No harm done.” He forced a smile, trying to laugh off John’s reaction. Whatever expression Sherlock had attempted did not have the expected result when John’s face crumpled a little, like a soggy handkerchief.

“Oh, no. _No_ , Sherlock. I was angry and-”

Sherlock held up his hand. He didn’t particularly want to have this conversation. “I understand that you cannot trust me to the level that you had previously before I... did. What I did. I can assure you that I have not taken anything illicit since Mycroft steered me towards Irene, who made sure I detoxed. It was an unpleasant experience. I have no desire to repeat it. As for the---”

John shut him up by grabbing his hands, carefully guiding them so that Sherlock set the hot coffee down without tipping it over.

Sherlock found himself speaking more quickly, as though he could stave off John’s inevitable words if he just spoke quickly enough. “-- the other incident with me...watching, I assure you it too will not be repeated. I understand that I crossed several unacceptable lines and--”

“Sherlock. Stop. It’s fine. A bit naughty, but I...” John looked heavenward, as though attempting to find the strength to continue. Sherlock was certain that most relationships... if that’s what they were doing here- _not_ his forté- didn’t start off with an absolution of kinky sins, but as he had never before been in a relationship it wasn’t as though he knew. “I like that you wanted to watch me.”

Sherlock blinked. “I watch you all the time.” He did. He watched John at rest. At play. At work. When running, when being particularly and delightfully dangerous. When making tea. When yelling at Sherlock. When yelling at people who were yelling at Sherlock. Sherlock was the foremost expert on John Watson. Any idiot knew that.

John sat back, keeping his fingers tangled with Sherlock’s. “I know.” His lips twitched in a slightly smug smile.

Sherlock looked back down at his plate, pushing some of his peas into the mashed potatoes, knowing his cheeks were flaming and uncomfortable with the intimacy. It wasn’t his area. Not that he couldn’t learn, and learning would be quite... lovely, but right now it was a bit much. John seemed to understand and let go of Sherlock’s hand, eating his own portion of food calmly, as though he had not said something utterly earth-shattering.

Sherlock cast about for a more suitable meal topic. “I am quite surprised at how well you’re taking knowing Irene is alive.”

Sherlock would have slapped himself if it would not have made him look more like an idiot. What was he _thinking_?  Sherlock immediately took a rather large bite of food and chewed, almost choking in his haste so that he would not blurt out anything else utterly moronic. Besides, John liked it when he ate.

“Oh. Well, you’re not the only one she was in contact with.”

Sherlock blinked. Blinked again. Imagined Irene’s blood red nails tracing the familiar lines of John’s face. Imagined her and John texting.  He opened his mouth to demand more data on this subject immediately, but before he could speak John rolled his eyes.

“Anthea, moron. I had asked Mycroft if you had detoxed in a facility, and she filled me in. She made it very clear that this was one more thing that you Holmeses couldn’t trust me with, and that I was lucky to be privy to this level of classified information.”

John’s false smile made Sherlock- someone who was blissfully unaware and equally uninterested in social cues- decidedly nervous. Another tasty meal suddenly tasted like dirt in his mouth. Sherlock felt himself freeze again, unsure and out of his depth.

“But I _am_ glad that between the two of you you managed to come out healthy. It’s just too bad that you were so caught up in all these secret squirrel plans that you couldn’t let me know what was going on.”

Sherlock was baffled at the rodent reference and made a mental note to look it up at his earliest opportunity, half imagining referring to Mycroft this way were it as applicable as he hoped. It certainly _sounded_ derisive enough.

John leaned back in his chair, staring hard at Sherlock. Sherlock allowed his shoulders to drop slightly, looking up at John through his fringe. It wasn’t even maliciously manipulative; Sherlock felt absolutely awful about having had to keep so many secrets from John. Add to that the things he did _because_ of John, or the things he was responsible for having been done _to_ John...

Well. It was a miracle that John was even willing to share a meal with him, let alone consent to live as Sherlock’s flatmate again.  

This was intolerable. Sherlock loathed feeling as though he were in the wrong. “I don’t like this.” Again, he was speaking before he had thought. Sherlock drank a large gulp of coffee, disgusted with himself.

“Like what, Sherlock?”  John’s voice was mild as he spoke, carefully thumbing through his phone. Sherlock was quite curious as to what John was reading, but equally certain that this was not the time to help himself to the knowledge.

“This!” Sherlock waved his hand around. “I keep saying the wrong thing! It’s horrible.” Sherlock got up from the table, remembering just in time that throwing himself down on the couch would not be in the best interests of his healing body.

“Hm.” John stood and cleared the table, putting away the leftovers.

Sherlock had to catch his breath at the familiar sounds, long taken for granted but dearly, _painfully_ missed. Even with his eyes closed, Sherlock could easily picture John as he moved comfortably around the kitchen. It was baffling how something so innocuous could be so calming, but Sherlock could actually feel the tension leech out of his body as he lay there.

“You know, there are a couple of things I don’t understand. I guessed a few things, and put a few things together by myself...”

Sherlock opened his eyes lazily, hearing John’s voice much closer than it normally was.

“Budge up, genius.”

Sherlock blinked rapidly for a moment, stymied, until he realized that John meant to share the couch with him, with Sherlock’s head on John’s lap, so that the detective could remain stretched out on his back.  He made an inquiring sound, completely unsure how he had gone from blurting out things almost guaranteed to infuriate his John to levels that usually involved a stringent application of John’s fist to someone’s face, to sharing a couch in a way that was actually most pleasing.  Sherlock found himself butting his head against John’s hand. The doctor got the hint most satisfactorily, immediately rubbing Sherlock’s curls and scalp as he had the previous night.

Sherlock stretched, pointing his toes, feeling utterly blissful.  He didn't even care that his ribs twinged.

“How did your brother not see this?”

Sherlock frowned for a moment before remembering that John had had a question before commencing the lovely head petting.

"I believe that he did."

John tensed at Sherlock's words. He could feel the muscles of John's thighs bunch up under his neck and sighed inwardly. Best to get this infernal talking done with as soon as possible. Sherlock was uncomfortably aware that he owed John much more than mere answers.

“My brother has always had the upper hand. Even when we were children, he made certain that whatever conspired at home did not adversely affect my parents’ relaxed lifestyle. He was recruited for the government, groomed to work for the Home Office from before he went away to school. He is very, very good at his job.” Sherlock tilted his head back slightly so that he could look up at John. It caused John’s fingers to tug pleasantly at his hair and Sherlock caught his breath slightly, faltering for a moment. “He pulled you into his plan, John. He knew what I had done, and why I had done it, and still was willing to use you to further his own ends.”

John’s lips dipped down in a frown. “I wanted to be useful.”

“Yes. Mycroft no doubted counted on that. He knew that you would stop at nothing to protect me, should the need arise, and given that he had orchestrated the events leading up to my meeting with Moriarty on the rooftop, he knew that I would do the exact same for you.”

John leaned down and kissed him on the lips. Sherlock froze. Before he could react, John moved back and resumed petting Sherlock’s hair, letting the damp strands curl slightly around his fingers. “Sorry,” he said, not sounding apologetic in the slightest. “Go on.”

Sherlock cleared his throat and began again.  “Given that, I find it impossible, and you know I do not use that word lightly, to believe that Mycroft was not fully aware that Moran had replaced his agents at the pool. Everything that happened there was collateral damage. You almost being killed on the scaffolding, my falling into the pool, the agents’ deaths, Anthea’s face... all of it. Moriarty was a spider whose web was a cancer across an international crime network.  Dismantling different webs worked for awhile. I have no doubt that Mycroft’s people engineered things so that their own people were in place when one of the webs could not be completely eradicated. Moran was a known variable that had to be removed. He fancied himself as brilliant as Moriarty, and was certainly devious...” Sherlock trailed off with a disgusted sound. “But my brother is more devious and brilliant than anyone, John. Moran wanted to get Mycroft, and to do that he had to go through us. You and myself? Collateral damage. To Mycroft’s agenda, the end justified the means.”

John’s hand paused mid-movement. “I think you’re forgetting something, though, Sherlock.”

Sherlock went quickly back over what he had said in his head, turning a little so that his legs curled into the back of the couch. He could rest the side of his head on John’s knee and look up at his face, trying desperately not to stare at (but painfully aware of) the thick bulge of John’s penis trapped behind his denims.

John’s other hand came down to rest on Sherlock’s bony hip and Sherlock flinched at the feel of the heat of John’s hand through the material of his pyjamas. Part of Sherlock could not quite believe that John was somehow comfortable with this level of... intimacy between the two of them, and feared that it would disappear if he said the wrong thing. The rest of him was agonizingly greedy for all of John’s attention: the hair petting, the little brushing touches, the feel of John’s lips against his.

“Your brother is a prick.”

“Well, no. I do not believe I’ve ever forgotten that, John. _Do_ keep up.”

The hand on Sherlock’s hip moved abruptly to slap the curve of Sherlock’s arse cheek. It was sharp enough to surprise Sherlock, but not enough to actually hurt.

“Watch it, you.” John’s fingers in his hair tugged slightly in admonishment, and Sherlock could no longer deny the way arousal pooled low in his belly. He was very, very aware of the timbre of John’s low voice. “I just meant that your brother is an arse, but he still wants the best for you. Somehow, he seems to think that is me. It’s kind of off-putting to realize that we agree on that. I think that him sending us our testing results is his way of matchmaking... which is both utterly horrifying and bizarrely endearing.” John made a slight face at the mental image of Mycroft being in any way endearing. Sherlock could empathize. “He might have pushed the both of us to action, manipulated our natures to react in a way that he found useful, but ultimately _we_ decided to react, Sherlock.”

Sherlock made his own face. What John said made perfect sense, but it irked him nonetheless to attribute any amount of altruism to Mycroft’s actions.

John sighed, tilting his head back on the couch and staring up at the ceiling, flexing his fingers slightly on the curve of Sherlock’s rear end as though he’d forgotten his fingers were there. Sherlock wanted to shift his legs restlessly to hide his burgeoning erection (with sudden clarity he _completely_ understood John’s awkwardness from earlier that morning), but he also wanted John’s hand to slide around and touch him. He wanted it _desperately_ , but was too unsure of himself to ask. What was the expectation in these sort of situations?  Sherlock had felt a low-grade arousal since he woke up with John. Was he allowed to just... act? What would John do if he arched into his touch? Surely he wouldn’t be disgusted given where his hands were.

Feeling nervous, Sherlock moved his neck so that his cheek pressed against the vee of John’s thighs, rubbing slightly. He was immediately overwhelmed with data; the clench of John’s hands, one in his hair and one on his arse, the smell of John’s skin, even behind the denim, the heat of his body through the material, the feel of John’s cock thickening under his cheek, the utterly delicious choked-off sound John made in his throat. Sherlock moved again, rubbing so that his chin pressed against John’s testicles, ignoring the uncomfortable feel of the zip against his nose and top lip.

“ _Sher_ lock.”

Sherlock immediately decided that his new goal for the rest of the day was to make John say his name in exactly that covetous, helpless way at least three more times. Five. _Seven._ Sherlock wiggled so that he could get to the button and zip of John’s jeans and paused for a moment. Should he ask...? No, John was clearly on board with it by the way his fingers began tugging at the waistband, lifting slightly so that he could get them off his bum. Sherlock had to balance himself so that John’s abrupt movement didn’t send him tumbling off the couch. Still, Sherlock was uncertain as to whether it was permissible to switch from serious topics to sexual exploration so quickly. He was tentative when he pressed his cheek against John again, this time separated only by the thin material of John’s pants. Sherlock must have made some sound of pain from his ribs, because John stopped him by sliding his hand from Sherlock’s hair to cup his cheek.

“You’ll hurt yourself.”

Sod that. Sherlock opened his mouth slightly, sucking John’s thumb into his mouth. He could feel John’s cock jump against his neck and flicked his tongue against the pad of the trapped digit, almost believing that he could taste John’s fingerprints. Sherlock knew that he was not particularly experienced in this manner of sexual intimacy, but millions of idiots managed it every day. It couldn’t _possibly_ be that difficult. Sherlock knew that he would be able to go no further if John even suspected that he would be harming himself, and moved somewhat stiffly to his knees in front of John.

“I won’t.” Sherlock felt it necessary to protest, bending and nuzzling at John’s clothed penis. He could smell John’s arousal, and it was absolutely intoxicating. Granted, some of that was just reaction to stimulus, but some had to be from the picture he must present like this. “Do you want my mouth?”

John groaned in response, spreading his knees as best he could, trapped as they were in his jeans. John’s hands fluttered around Sherlock’s hair for a moment before deciding on resting on the couch cushion, on the outside of his legs. Sherlock opened his mouth and pressed a wet kiss against the heat of him, moving slightly up to the wet material and sucking the it into his mouth. Oh. _Oh_ , that was... John. His very DNA merging with Sherlock’s own saliva. Just the idea of it was gloriously stimulating. Sherlock felt his own body respond, his sleep trousers tenting so quickly that he was lightheaded from the loss of blood flow.

Sherlock could feel the shape of John’s penis under the cloth and wasted no time in mapping out each thick inch with his tongue, fiercely triumphant at hearing John’s strangled groan above him. Sherlock rocked up on his knees and pulled the elastic of John’s pants out and down, gasping when John’s cock fell out, brushing against Sherlock’s cheek. It was quite thick, not as long as his own but... quite. _Hmm_.  Sherlock bent down to lick at the very tip and smiled smugly at the sound John made at his efforts. John arched up and Sherlock yanked John’s clothes down and off of his limbs, moaning a little when John shamelessly spread his legs for Sherlock’s attentions. It was exactly what Sherlock had wanted from before, when John wouldn’t let him touch. Sherlock took a deep breath and licked at the tip again before sucking tentatively on just the shiny head.

“ _Christ_.” John’s groan made Sherlock feel absurdly confident and he slowly worked more of John’s cock into his mouth. John’s girth was an issue and there was a bit of a trick with his tongue and teeth, but the sounds John couldn’t keep trapped in his throat were their own encouragement as Sherlock attempted to bob down further.

John’s hips bucked at the exact same moment, and Sherlock choked when John went slightly too far, pulling off of him and coughing helplessly.

“Shit! _Shit_ , sorry. God, come here.” John bent slightly, pulling Sherlock up by the simple expedient of cupping his cheeks in his capable hands and directing him up so that John could kiss him. Sherlock ignored his streaming eyes as John’s lips closed over his, licking into his mouth with a desperation that Sherlock did not quite understand. It caused him to shiver slightly at the realization that John was tasting himself in Sherlock’s mouth and did not seem to mind. Perhaps... perhaps John would not mind performing fellatio on him sometime in the future? Sherlock very much wished to try this.

John pulled away to scramble at his t-shirt, and Sherlock found himself touching the bare expanse of John’s skin almost before he had given himself permission. John was very warm. Sherlock wanted to step back and simply stare at John, to memorize each and every mark on his skin, but was equally afraid that doing so would be too... much. John would come to his senses and stop and no. Best to just let John lead him, so that Sherlock did not make him uncomfortable.

“What’s the matter?” John pulled back slightly, his chest heaving. He seemed to be utterly unbothered by the fact that he was completely naked in their sitting room, weak afternoon sun shining in through the curtains, as though the rain from yesterday was not ready to commit to making an appearance.  “Sherlock?”

Sherlock blinked, leaning forward and kissing the gunshot wound on John’s shoulder. He wanted very much to drop to his knees again, but was not sure if John had forgiven him his blunder from before. Him choking could not possibly have been very attractive. Apparently the millions of idiots had more of a clue as to this sex business than himself.

John sighed as though Sherlock had done something unexpected. He did not sound upset though. Quite the opposite. “Come to bed?”

Sherlock had to try twice before he could speak.

“Yes, John.” His voice was slightly lower than his normal register, and he could see John’s eyes dilate at the sound when he did.  Sherlock bent to kiss John, feeling slightly less ridiculous when John immediately gripped his hips, rubbing their groins together. Oh. Oh, that felt... _god_. No wonder so many people did this. Still, as delightful as it was, Sherlock could not imagine doing all of this with anyone else other than John. He was essential in all ways.

John’s fingers dipped under Sherlock’s waistband, sliding over and down to grip his arse, so that Sherlock’s clothed length rubbed against John’s stomach. He could feel John’s heat notched between his upper thighs, playing at his testicles and immediately turned, pulling John into his bedroom after him. Sherlock kicked and locked the door, grinning slightly at John’s breathless laugh.

Sherlock drew himself up to his full height, determined to say this once so that they need never mention it again. “I.. I have not.” He tried again.  “I am not experienced in these matters, John, as I am sure you are aware. I wish to be penetrated, but I also very much wish to penetrate you.  I wish it very much, and no doubt my damnable brother already had one of his minions procure the necessary supplies. I understand that you must not trust me, and will wear a condom.”

“No.”

Sherlock’s heart jumped to his throat and he started to shift away, horrified, mind blanking in utter humiliation at John’s abrupt rejection.  John’s hand whipped out to keep Sherlock in place, tightening around his wrist and stepping forward so that Sherlock’s back bumped against the solid wood frame of the door. Sherlock blinked rapidly, muscles tense but unwilling to hurt John, desperate to escape before John saw the stupid sheen of tears in his eyes. This is exactly why he did not do this. Tedious cues Sherlock never seemed to quite understand, and even with John he was a fool, a stupid, greedy fool and it was all completely rui----

John stepped even closer, using his other hand to tip Sherlock’s head back so that he had to meet John’s gaze. “No. Bloody hell, I didn’t mean that, not how it sounded, Sherlock. _Stop_.” The word “stop” trembled slightly as John’s voice shook. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry, Sherlock. I just meant that you don’t have to.” John kissed his chin, then his nose, of all ridiculous things. “You don’t have to use a condom. I _do_ trust you, you idiot.”

The relief was palpable and Sherlock couldn't help but stand against the door calmly for just a moment, attempted to get his ridiculous emotions under control.

Sherlock bent his neck to kiss John’s downturned mouth, then gently pushed against him so that John backed up towards Sherlock’s bed, tumbling back with a surprised laugh. Sherlock found that he was smiling as he followed John down onto the bed.  His heart was thudding crazily in his chest, and he felt an influx of chemicals flood his system for completely different reasons. Sherlock found that the change of emotion kept him breathless as he became lost in John’s kisses a little desperately, John who was more than willing to overlook his gauche awkwardness and Sherlock was eager for John to show him what should happen next.

It surprised him when John wrapped one ankle around Sherlock’s leg and flipped both of them. Sherlock bounced onto his back with a surprised ‘oof’ and froze for a second, waiting to see if his body would protest the movement.

But no. Careful John; _clever_ John managed to avoid every area on Sherlock that was tender or sore, straddling Sherlock thighs with a funny little smirk on his face, uncaring that he was naked.

"Hmmm. I believe you said that you wanted to penetrate me- or for me… What was it? Oh yes. To penetrate  you."

Sherlock found that his excessive vocabulary had utterly deserted him. He understood with perfect clarity that he did not want to forget this moment; John looking down at him his eyes soft and affectionate, a faint blush on his cheeks, lips twisted into a gentle, amused quirk. "Part of me can't believe I'm here, but the rest of me is so fucking happy right now that I'm not entirely sure this is real, and not another fantasy.”

Sherlock licked his lips.  “Fantasy?” He settled his large hands on John’s hips, attempting to memorize the feel of John’s weight on top of his own. _Another?!_

“God, yes. You, underneath me? The stuff of many, _many_ filthy fantasies, Sherlock.”

Sherlock’s throat went dry. He was not entirely sure how John could simply just _say_ things like that, as though he knew the effect that it would have on Sherlock’s body. On his breathing. Christ, on his _heart._

John bent down to lick his way into Sherlock’s mouth, lips pressing tightly against the seam of Sherlock’s mouth. Part of Sherlock was still reeling, and part of him was undeniably curious. Before he could ask though, he lost himself again in John’s kisses.

Still though, breathing was not nearly as boring when he was using breath to return John’s kiss. It was hardly what Sherlock would ever call boring.  The opposite of boring, in fact.

“Fantasies, John?”

John’s laugh was rueful as he carefully shifted his weight back onto Sherlock, rubbing his naked bum against Sherlock’s erection, which seemed to be doing its best to break away from the prison of his sleep pyjamas. It sent electronic signals to his brain that made Sherlock’s breath stutter in his lungs. The heat was indescribable. John pulled away from his mouth and Sherlock could see that John’s move had been _deliberate_ , and _Christ_ , this might actually kill him.

“Yeah. A fair few of them, actually.”

Sherlock licked his lips, moving his hands from John’s hips to his chest, carefully brushing his hands against muscle and sinew. Sherlock had seen John without a shirt of course, but now, in this particular moment he felt as though he would not be able to breathe for the want that surged through him, especially when John huffed a startled breath as Sherlock’s fingernails skirted over John’s nipples, causing them to pebble into hardness.

“Like what?” His own voice’s deep timbre caused John to shiver slightly, his eyes darkening even more in the dim light of the bedroom.

“Oh god. I’ve thought of so many different things. You in a strop and bending me over the couch. Your face when you slide into me for the first time. Taking you apart with my tongue. Us in the shower with you on your knees. The feel of your hands on me like this. Stupid things too, like waking up with you tangled around me. Kissing you goodnight. Kissing you good morning. I’ve thought of _everything_ , Sherlock.”

Sherlock could only moan, bucking his body up and biting his lip to attempt to stifle the sound. John moved, standing besides Sherlock on the bed and no, that wasn’t right. That wasn’t what was meant to happen! Sherlock sat up, opened his mouth but before he could manage to speak, John had crossed over to the loo, and Sherlock heard him curse and the slam of a drawer. With a surreal grin, Sherlock turned over in bed and opened his bedside drawer, pulling out the rather large tube and waiting for John (whose slams and curses were growing increasingly louder) to return to bed.

“I cannot believe there’s no sodding lube!  Again! Are we curs--oh, you _arse_.” Sherlock laughed at John’s mock glare and shook the tube with his own smirk. The idea of laughing during sexual intimacy was new to him as much as anything else. John climbed into the bed and Sherlock wiggled a little as he kicked off his pyjamas and pants and oh, that was much, much better. The heat of John’s body was both soothing and stimulating.

“How. Uh. How should we do this?” Sherlock kissed John’s shoulder, hiding his face a little at the blunt question.

“Hmm. Trust me?”  

Sherlock jerked his head up and rolled his eyes at the asinine question, knowing the action would make John’s sharp laugh echo around the room, and when it did he couldn’t help the small, pleased smile that twisted his lips.

“Okay then. Lay back down and let me look at you.”

Sherlock did so, eagerly, pushing the lubrication to his side with his elbow. He _wanted_ John’s gaze on him. He stretched carefully, babying his elbow and his ribs, attempting to assume a pose that John would find provocative. It made him feel both uncomfortably brazen and powerful at John’s very obvious reaction. John had been in the process of climbing onto the bed, and at Sherlock’s movements, John froze except for the way his penis thickened and filled back to its prior length and girth, bobbing in front of him.

“Christ.” John’s mutter was quiet, but the way he reached out with one hand, stroking his callused palm down Sherlock’s good shoulder, ghosting over his bound ribs and down over his hip to his thigh was reverent. Goosebumps caused Sherlock to shiver. John’s hand gently pushed at Sherlock’s thighs and he quickly spread them, biting his lip at the way John’s gaze sharpened as he looked down at him, moving so that he was lying between Sherlock’s spread knees.

Sherlock rather thought that he had made it quite clear that he was not overly experienced at this, but he was pathetically afraid that if John did what he thought he was going to do, then this would be over much too quickly and none of this would matter as Sherlock would have died from embarrassment.  Yet, even with this John understood, and as he leaned over to taste Sherlock, John’s other hand curled around the base of Sherlock’s penis, grip tight enough that the stimulus was distracting enough that Sherlock didn’t shoot off at the first wet swipe of John’s tongue against him.

That was... _oh_. Oh, god. John worked his tongue over the pink head of his glans, licking up the precome that had trickled down to the base of his cock.

“Perhaps I should wear a cock ring. Next time of course.”  Sherlock couldn’t have said where the words came from, but the strangled sound John made was worth it. It must have been a very good thing indeed, based on the way that John started working his mouth over him, sucking little kisses onto the flesh, finding every single sensitive spot with his tongue and lips.

John was very clever, and kept Sherlock trembling with just enough stimulation that it felt... it felt... _Damn_ , but he could not think of the proper term. Sherlock wasn’t entirely sure there _was_ a proper term for what John was making him feel. John carefully controlled it so that the stimulation was not enough to send Sherlock crashing over the precipice to orgasm. He only knew that he was begging by the way his mouth was dry, yet had no inkling of the words he had used. John was bobbing down on him as though he had forgotten himself, as though sucking Sherlock to completion was his only goal.

Sherlock flailed around, pulling at his sheets with fisted hands, knocking the lubrication with his elbow so that it slid across the smooth sheets. John pulled off of him with a lewd-sounding pop, and Sherlock curled up slightly in on himself, attempting to remember how to breathe normally.

“All right?”

Sherlock nodded, pushing himself at John’s mouth and kissing him sloppily, frantically. His hands curled around John’s arse.

“ _Please_ , John. Please I want you.”  Sherlock pulled John to him, pulling apart the cheeks of his arse slightly and brushing his thumbs against John’s testicles. Sherlock froze at the wet slickness he found there. Lube. It was... _god_. John had started to prepare himself while he was fellating Sherlock’s cock.  The image of John moving forward onto Sherlock’s penis and back onto his own fingers was _intoxicating_. Letting go of John’s arse and still kissing, Sherlock found the bottle and squirted some onto his own fingers, sliding them back and into John’s heat without any warning. John collapsed against him, yanking his mouth away from Sherlock’s to moan, gasping in oxygen as Sherlock tentatively, then not so tentatively began sliding the two fingers in and out of John’s arsehole. John pulled away from Sherlock abruptly, bending over and pushing one of their pillows out of the way, so that John was on all fours against the headboard, legs spread invitingly. Sherlock knelt behind him, blinking a little at the quickness of John’s movement.

“Please, Sherlock. This is what I want. Like this, _fuck-k-k_ ,”  The ‘k’ sound stuttered as Sherlock slid his fingers back inside  John, moving behind him. “Please.”

Yes. This was... yes. Sherlock’s attention was caught by a tiny bead of sweat as it slid from John’s hairline, down his spine, stopping at John’s tailbone, as though trying to draw attention to the slick, sweaty globes of John’s rather delightful arse.  Sherlock bit his lip, debating on whether or not he should ask, still unsure of the niceties even with two fingers sliding lazily in and out of John’s arse.

Fuck it. John would certainly tell him if he were doing something incorrectly.

Sherlock had to contort his body a little, sliding his fingers out and bending to lick at the bead of sweat. John gasped and Sherlock grinned a bit wickedly, leaning forward and biting at John’s arsecheek. John’s cry was loud in the room. Sherlock gently pulled him apart, fascinated by the way John’s hole was slightly reddened and open from both of their fingers, shining slickly with lubrication.

“ _Sher_ lock.” John’s gasp was both shocked and heartily turned on.  He moved so his arse was closer to Sherlock’s face.

Sherlock’s grin turned smug. That was two. He bent forward, tracing the stretched hole with just the tip of his tongue. The lube was flavorless, but the consistency less than pleasant. Still, the gasping moan that John made sounded like it was being pulled from his throat, encouraging Sherlock to flick his tongue faster around the rim. As with before, the scent of John was strong here, and just as intoxicating. Sherlock quite lost himself, using his tongue, his fingers, and his mouth until John was trembling underneath him, begging with a throat gone hoarse from his own moaning for Sherlock to fuck him, already.

Sherlock jolted back to himself with his own moan, jaw tight and achy. He rested his forehead against the back of John’s thigh for a moment, sucking in his own steadying breath. His own arousal was letting him know in no uncertain terms that it had been more than patient, thanks, and enough was bloody well enough.

“John. John....” Sherlock couldn’t even get his brain to focus enough for actual coherency, pulling himself up and lining up with single-minded intensity. God, even his legs were unsteady. When the head of his cock brushed against John’s hole they both cried out.

“C’mon, Sherlock. Inside me. I want... _ughhh_!”

Sherlock started to slide inside of John, freezing when John groaned, the head  popping through the tight ring of muscle sending every nerve ending in his body lighting up at once. John reached back with one hand, and Sherlock grasped it on autopilot, half-terrified to move before John indicated that he was ready.

He almost couldn’t even process the slick heat and remained there, trembling, with one hand clutching John’s and the other white-knuckled on the headboard, desperate not to come.

“Okay. I’m okay. Just... slowly.”

Sherlock gasped, kissing helplessly at the back of John’s shoulder. The ridge of scar tissue allowed him to focus more clearly on John’s needs, rather than his own. He had no wish to be a selfish lover. John was worth so much more than that. Sherlock moved his hips forward at a glacial pace, slowly burying himself in John’s arse. He could feel the muscles tighten around his cock and grit his teeth against the need to just plunge inside, to mindlessly fuck his way to orgasm.

“Touch yourself.” Sherlock’s voice was a rumbling demand and John obeyed instantly. John rocked forward, then back and they both moaned in unison. Sherlock rotated his hips experimentally, fiercely glad that they were not doing this face to face, as the expression on his face was likely utterly ridiculous.  He began slowly sliding in and out of John, overwhelmed with sensation. Sherlock tipped his head down to watch himself disappear inside of John and had to look away quickly. John caught his rhythm, and they began in earnest, the sounds of grunts and the slapping of naked skin against naked sweaty skin growing louder and louder amongst the creaking of the bed and the bump of the headboard against the wall.

“Sherlock....! I’m. Oh, Oh, _fuck_.”

Sherlock heard John’s words, but had no basis of comparison for the feeling of John’s arse clamping down onto him as he came. Sherlock’s head tipped back so that he was staring blindly at the ceiling, mouth open in a silent scream as his orgasm rushed through him and spilling into John. He dimly felt his shoulder twinge unpleasantly, but could ignore it with the rush of chemicals in his bloodstream, more potent than any high he’d ever chased.

John slid down onto the mattress with a groan, his arms and legs giving out completely.  

Sherlock had to concentrate on separating his fingers from the headboard before he could move, feeling fleetingly proud of the fact that he didn’t collapse directly on top of John. He felt as though his body belonged to someone else. Sherlock pulled out of John with a wince, staring with wide eyes at the amount of semen that dribbled out of John’s now-stretched hole. Sherlock reached out and pushed it back inside with his thumb, checking to make sure he had not damaged his John in any way.

John gave a feeble sort of huff, and mumbled something into the mattress that Sherlock could not catch.  John was puffy, and pink, but there was no damage. Curious but lethargic, Sherlock idly wondered whether cleaning John with his tongue would be a bit much for their first time.

He grinned to himself and heaved himself up to go to the bathroom for a towel to clean John up in a way less likely to cause heart failure.  John was not the only one to have fantasies, and Sherlock simply made a note in John’s half of his mind palace to research that for later. He cleaned himself off, noting idly that he was grinning like a fool at himself in the mirror before making his way back to John and their ruined bed. Sherlock made a quick detour to take his pain medication... right now he was high on endorphins, but knew that the exercise would make his muscles scream with agony if he slept without taking them. Sherlock bent to have John turn over onto his back, sliding the warm cloth over his still-flushed skin, enjoying this new intimacy as much as all the others.

“You’re cleaning me up? God, I love you.”

Sherlock felt his knees collapse and he fell onto the bed ungracefully, staring at John with wide eyes. His mind was simply cut off to white static, like a telly without a a station.

John winced and flopped a little as he attempted to sit up, winced again, then forced himself upward, his fingers clamping around Sherlock’s wrist.

“Yes, you heard that right. No, it’s not leftover endorphins from the spectacular shagging. Yes, I mean it. I am.” John leaned over and brushed his lips over Sherlock’s. “Utterly mad over you. No, you do not need to say it back. And yes, I am playing to your ego by calling it spectacular, but fucking Christ, Sherlock. If that was your first time I can’t even begin to fathom what sex will be like once you exercise that ridiculously brilliant learning curve of yours. I. Love. You.... you mad bastard.” John flopped back down onto the mattress like today was just a regular day, as though Sherlock’s entire world had not been completely shattered and rebuilt again in almost the same heartbeat.

Sherlock blinked rapidly, aware that the foolish grin from before was stretching to something absolutely asinine but not caring one whit.  He followed John back to the bed, flexing his wrist in John’s grasp and curling up behind him, kicking at the blankets until John could grab them so that they were covered.

This was... nice. Perfect, really. Listening to John’s calming heartbeat, feeling the way John’s fingertips ghosted over the arm Sherlock had wrapped around his chest... he could quite easily get used to this. Sherlock was never one to speak of sentiment, often not understanding its nuances or particularities. Now though, he could whisper the words into John’s sleeping ear, feeling his own heartbeat thud faster in his chest as he did so. “I love you too, John.”

There were a few more beats of silence before Sherlock was shocked utterly (for what seemed like the hundredth time that night) when John spoke. “I know, Sherlock. I heard you the first time you said it.” John twisted so that they were face to face and kissed Sherlock’s gaping mouth with a quick little tease of a kiss.

Sherlock felt absurdly as though he would cry and that he could fly simultaneously. John had heard him the first time he’d said it? Way back before...? “John--” Sherlock started, but John hushed him with another quick kiss. “Don’t worry 'bout a thing. We need to sleep. I want to wake up with you curled around me.  Then I want a fry-up, which you will have to make as I am suspecting my arse will make things a bit uncomfortable for a few days. But before that... sleep, Sherlock, love. Everything will wait. We’re in no rush.”

Sherlock nodded, still feeling horribly vulnerable, but willing to let John lead him in this as in all other things relating to the heart. He knew that things were far from over. There were loose ends to tie up with Mycroft, and John would likely have terrifying nightmares once his brain fully realized he was safe back in 221B. Not to mention the process of being declared alive, and coming back to his place in London would be tedious beyond description, but John was correct. Sherlock was happy, _blissful,_ wrapped around his John, sharing breath and sleep, lazy almost-kisses.

It would all wait.

Right now, he had John, and that was everything that Sherlock wanted.

 

**THE END.**

 

/me falls over.

* * *

 

  
Sorry for the long author’s note, but HOLY CRAP (!!!111!!!) This fic was started last February, and finished in October. I wanted to try to do another non-linear fic- they always seem awesome when I read them and plan them out, but going back and covering all the plot points is a _bitch_.

  
Anyway, I hope that I got them all. A reader mentioned that keeping the point of views separate at the beginning was a bit weird, but I was going for an obvious separation of Sherlock’s story and Johns... until they met up and had the same story. *shrug* That was the intention, anyway.  Much _much_ **_much_** love to Jen for being amazing and to FoxyK for the ninja beta. Love you guys!  As always, thanks so much for the comments and kudos.,. and feel free to friend me on tumblr!

 

-lost

  


 

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings/ A/N: I will try my best to list off the things that I will most likely use. So... without further ado:
> 
> Post R-falls fic. I LOVE THIS TROPE OKAY. Suicidal attempt of depressed character (kind of? you'll see.), PTSD, mild torture and gore, descriptions of panic attacks, drug use, and descriptions of claustrophobia, voyeurism, hurt/comfort, jealousy, unsafe sex, a metric fuckton of angst (hellooo! we must not have met before if you need me to warn for that, lol), pining, and miscommunication (love that). I am heavily inspired by an old episode of CSI, If you are triggered by violent acts, psychological mind fuckery, or general creepiness of bad guys, then you might want to wait until this is finished, or even give this fic a miss altogether.
> 
> As always, thanks for commenting and the concrit, either or on my [tumblr](http://1lostone.tumblr.com/)


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